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Your mobile phone, your computer, your portable music player, and your gaming system all fuel fighting in eastern Congo.
Overview
Armed groups earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year by trading conflict minerals. These minerals are in all our electronics devices. Government troops and militias fight to control the mines, murdering and raping civilians to fracture the structure of society.
What Are Conflict Minerals?
Gold, tin, tantalum, tungsten (the "3 T's"), are mined in eastern Congo and are in all consumer electronics products.
Locals in mining communities are forced to take part in the illicit mining economy. Money earned from the sale of conflict minerals is used for personal profit and to further violent causes.
Minerals are smuggled out of Congo through neighboring countries, then shipped to smelters around the world for refinement. Once minerals are processed in this way, it’s difficult to trace their origin. Conflict minerals easily make their way to the U.S. and all over the world in consumer products.
We must work together to bring about an end to the trade in conflict minerals. Together, we must create a demand for responsible sourcing for minerals from Congo.
Current Policy
The Dodd-Frank Legislation
As a part of the U.S. Government's Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, signed into law in July 2010, Section 1502 requires American companies to ensure the raw materials they use to make their products are not tied to the conflict in Congo, by auditing the mineral supply chains.
What are Due Diligence Guidelines?
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas provides management recommendations for importers, processors, and consumers of Congolese minerals. These guidelines provide a practical roadmap for companies who want to keep conflict minerals out of their supply chains.
The Dodd-Frank Act’s provision, signed into law in July 2010, requires companies to trace and audit their supply chains in order to ensure their products are not financing atrocities occurring in eastern Congo. Through this legislation, the U.S. Government will lead the way to making due diligence in minerals supply chains mandatory.
The Dodd-Frank Act provides the commercial leverage to catalyze reform. The U.S. Government can use its convening power to bring together companies, regional governments, and NGOs to fix loopholes in the certification system, develop a monitoring system, and use diplomatic leverage to generate political will to implement it.
Dodd-Frank FAQ
As one of the principle drivers behind Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, the Enough Project is often questioned regarding the legislation’s effects on U.S. companies and Congolese society. Go here to read Dodd-Frank FAQ’s.
Solutions
Certification
Just like buying organic produce, Fair Trade coffee, or not buying blood diamonds, consumers should be able to shop for conflict free electronics (read our Company Rankings). We at the Enough Project believe the Congo needs a system of certification, in addition to the Dodd-Frank legislation’s tracing and auditing provision, to ensure that electronics products are not financing atrocities in eastern Congo.
What does 'certification' mean?
A certification regime is a guarantee that a given product—sometimes a commodity, other times a finished product—meets a defined, agreed-upon standard.
The value of a certification regime is that it would guarantee standards when companies or governments on their own cannot. A legitimate certification system must function as a shared ownership partnership between governments, the private sector, and civil society.
Components of a Certification System:
- Due diligence where companies work with their suppliers to verify the smelters in their mineral supply chain.
- A conflict free smelter program that enables third party validation of a smelter’s sourcing practices and a determination of whether its sources are conflict free.
- An in-region mineral certification system that enables the traceability and certification of minerals mined in the DRC.
Our Initiatives
Conflict-Free Campus Initiative - The Conflict-Free Campus Initiative is a nation-wide campaign to build the consumer voice for conflict-free electronics, such as cell phones, laptops, and other devices that will not finance war in eastern Congo.
Go here for more information on how to get involved with CFCI.
