Connecting People: The Human Cost of Mobile Phones (2010)

Overview

From miners scrabbling for raw metals…to factory workers facing inhumane conditions…to scavengers who subsist on illegally discarded products…today’s cell phones extract a social, economic, and ecological cost that extends far beyond the price tag. This program spans the globe as it shows how the manufacture of mobile phones affects both human beings and the environment. It takes aim at child labor and brutal working conditions in the mines of the Congo Republic; organized crime at collecting points for electronic waste in Norway; and the smuggling of such waste via Hong Kong to mainland China, where high-volume manufacturing turns employment into near slavery, and where children and pregnant women pick through refuse dumps that violate international law.