Editing Coltan (section)

=== Mining ===
For Congolese, mining is the readiest source of income, because the work is consistently available, even if only for a dollar a day.<ref name="Smith 2011">{{cite journal|last=Smith|first=James H.|title=Tantalus in the Digital Age: Coltan ore, temporal dispossession, and "movement" in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo|journal=American Ethnologist|date=February 1, 2011|volume=38|issue=1|pages=17–35|doi=10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01289.x}}</ref> The work can be laborious; miners can walk for days into the forest to reach the ore, scratch it from the earth with hand tools, and pan it. About 90% of young men{{dubious|date=May 2016}} in Congo have done this.<ref name=kill/> Research found that many Congolese leave farming because they need money quickly and cannot wait for crops to grow. Farming also presents its own obstacles. For example, the lack of roads in the Congolese interior makes it extremely difficult to transport produce to market and a harvest can be seized by militias or the military.<ref name="Smith 2011" /> With their food gone, people resort to mining to survive. But organized mines may be run by corrupt groups such as militias. The Congolese mine coltan with few tools, no safety procedures, and often no mining experience.<ref name="mantz1"/> No government aid or intervention is available in many unethical and abusive circumstances. Miners consider coltan mining a way to provide for themselves in the face of widespread war and conflict and a government that has no concern for their welfare.<ref name=kill>{{cite web
| url=http://www.roape.org/093/10.html
| last=Jackson
| first=Stephen
| title=Making a killing: criminality and coping in the Kivu war economy
| work=Review of African Political Economy
| publisher=ROAPE Publications
| access-date=28 January 2013
| archive-date=27 May 2014
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140527093503/http://www.roape.org/093/10.html
| url-status=dead
}}</ref>

A 2007 study of the radioactivity of the coltan mined in [[Masisi]] and other parts of the [[North Kivu Province]] found "that grinding and sieving coltan can give rise to high occupational doses, up to 18 [[Sievert|mSv]] per year on average."<ref>{{citation|journal=Journal of Radiological Protection |publisher= IOP Publishing Ltd |title=Occupational radiation exposures of artisans mining columbite–tantalite in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo |author1= Mustapha, A. O.|author2= Mbuzukongira, P.| author3= Mangala, M. J. |date= 25 May 2007 | volume=27|pages= 187–95 | number=2|pmid= 17664663 |doi= 10.1088/0952-4746/27/2/005 |bibcode= 2007JRP....27..187M |s2cid= 1473788 }}</ref>