What good person holds an economic principle or their wallet above a child's right to have a childhood, education, their health, lives and to not be unrepresented, exploited, abused or underpaid for their labor?
We, everyone of us reading this, know the reality, if not just look around and see that lady cleaning floors or that guy in the fast food joint working their asses off for a menial pay.
You could say they are a step above slavery, but hey, no problem, you and me have good jobs and money enough so we can buy anything we want to eat and a shiny gadgets every year.
Ignoring this reality about slaves in those countries and almost slaves in our land is easy, but don't forget that this is a conscious decision.
But if you look at the electronic device we're talking about here, namely iphones, it is an overpriced piece of hardware used as a display of social status which is unrelated to a market call for cheap electronics.
Apple has more than enough margin and power to be able to secure conflict-free minerals for their devices and lead by example, but they don't because there's no regulations asking for it and they'd rather get a tad more profits for a bunch of shareholders instead of caring for other humans (who happen to be in distant countries and black or brown or yellow and poor).
The more unrest there is in those mineral rich countries, the cheaper the minerals will be and the juicier the profit for shareholders.