Human Rights Issues in the News
Conflict Minerals

by Arnold Winkleried

Did your cell phone purchase help fund human rights abuses?

You may have heard of “conflict diamonds,” also known as “blood diamonds”: it has been a well-known cause for the past 15 years, due to sales of diamonds being used by warlords and rebels to buy arms during the devastating wars in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Sierra Leone. This doesn’t only happen with gemstones, however.

The DRC is rich in natural resources, including large deposits of columbite-tantalite (known as coltan), cassiterite, wolframite, and gold, which are used in jewelry and in everyday technology such as cell phones, laptops, and digital video recorders. The mines from which these minerals are extracted are most often under the control of armed groups, especially in the volatile eastern part of the country, where conflict has been ongoing for many years, despite the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping mission.

The most recent report of the United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC found that armed groups in the eastern DRC continue to control and profit from the extraction and trade of these minerals. Both the conflict and the mining of minerals itself have led to grave human rights abuses, including sexual violence, child and slave labor, and mass displacement. Despite an international agreement to end the war in the DRC in 2003, and two further agreements at the beginning of 2008 to end fighting in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, the DRC remains a combat zone where millions have perished and more than a million have left their homes to seek refuge.

In this war, women and girls are being raped in great numbers, sometimes in public and in front of family members as a form of intimidation. All of the contending military forces in the conflict have made heavy use of minors as combatants, porters, cooks, and sex slaves. The government has taken no steps to trace and recover these missing children. Children who have tried to escape have been beaten to death as a lesson to other child recruits.

The U.S. Congress is currently (February 2010) moving forward on legislation to reduce the trade in conflict minerals and improve knowledge of the source of these minerals. H.R. 4128, the Conflict Minerals Trade Act of 2009, would map mines under the control of armed groups in the DRC and ask the secretaries of State and Commerce to ensure due diligence and documentation on the supply chain of these minerals. Any person or company guilty of bringing conflict minerals into the U.S. by fraud or negligence would be subject to penalties.

What action can I take right now?

E-mail your representative to ask him or her to co-sponsor the Conflict Minerals Trade Act. Or, if you are feeling ambitious, schedule an in-person meeting with your representative to encourage support of the Act! For other ideas, please visit the Amnesty International blog: Take action now.

To learn more about Amnesty International and their work promoting human rights, visit them online at amnesty.org