Conflict Minerals

Since 1998, the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been engulfed in the deadliest conflict since the Second World War – over 5.4 million people have died as a result of the conflict’s impact on the agricultural and health systems.

Although half a world away, the war in the Congo is directly related to us in the Western world, as our consumption of electronic gadgets – such as cell phones, computers, iPods, and BlackBerries – has been fueling conflict and sexual violence against women and men by funding armed groups. Rebels, militia and abusive units of the Congolese army exploit a wide variety of the Congo’s nearly unlimited natural resources to buy weapons, feed their soldiers, and keep the war going. Chief among these are ‘conflict minerals,’ which often end up in the circuit boards and capacitors of electronic products, and generate tens of millions of dollars for armed groups each year – upwards of 40% of their revenue.

Through long and opaque international supply chains, these conflict minerals make their way from rebel-controlled mines in eastern Congo to smelters mainly located in Southeast Asia – in Thailand, Malaysia, India, China and elsewhere – where they are melted down and mixed with minerals from other parts of the world, obscuring their origins. Once processed into metals, they are then used as key components in electronic devices.

The major electronic companies – Apple, Nintendo, Sony, Toshiba, etc. – have an important part to play in determining and informing consumers whether their products contain conflict minerals that funds conflict in the Congo; they have until recently simply relied on the word of their suppliers that the latter do not source from conflict mines, with minimal verification. The Enough Projectmonitors the major electronic companies on the positive steps that they have taking in investigating and cleaning up their supply chains.

The U.S. Dodd-Frank Act, passed into law in July 2010, contains provisions (Section 1502) that will soon require companies that use the 3Ts + Gold to trace back through their supply chain to determine if they are in fact sourcing minerals that fuels in the conflict in the Congo, obtain an independent audit, and make this information available to the public.