INFOGRAPHIC: The Truth About Conflict Minerals

The valuable minerals mined in the barbaric conditions of armed conflict are termed as ‘Blood minerals’ or ‘Conflict minerals’. These are prominently found in the Eastern Provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the epicenter for the illicit trade of these metal-minerals. This phenomenon of mining is a multi-dimensional jeopardy to human race. The profits of conflict minerals are used by the armed forces to raise funds for violence & riots. This trade also provides some rebel groups & slices of national army with a significant amount of money used to buy guns & other weapons.

The four chief minerals mined in this region are 3Ts i.e. Tungsten, Tin & Tantalum and Gold, that mostly reach the electronics industry. They are a common feature of the automobile sector, consumer electronics, sports equipment & jewelery.

As per the statistics of ITRI, more than 50% global tin supply is used in Solders. Also, the U.S Geological Survey estimates that the tantalum capacitors for use in automotive electronics, cell phones & other applications account for over 60% of total use of the metal. The tungsten metal has a huge sphere of use. From heat & water resistance applications to being used as cutting tools, it is profoundly used in the industries. While all of these minerals are of undue importance in our daily lives, perhaps most revered of these all is gold that is globally used as jewelery & as coinage in financial industry & to some extent in aerospace.

The other side of conflict mineral – misery is the extortion of people planted as laborers at the mines. Hired at gun-point, these people are threatened for their lives to work at the mines under the horrendous conditions of horrible tools, tough locations and tons of lifting. Such work conditions are also responsible for human death. According to a sinister fact, the lives lost in the Congo Civil conflict i.e. over 5.4 million are way more than those lost during the U.S Civil War & Vietnam War. Another highlight is that as much as 35% of Congo’s total mineral profits goes to the armed groups & the mine-related revenue of these groups is a whooping 75% of their total revenue.

But to combat this ongoing trade, the government policies have been framed & implemented. The U.S Government’s Dodd-Frank Wall street Reform & Consumer Protection Act (signed in 2010 into law) states in its Section 1502 that it’s mandatory for the American firms to track & audit their raw material supplies to make sure that they are not associating their products to mines ruled by the brutal armed forces.

Out of a total of 12,000 companies affected by the Dodd-Frank Act, as many as 1,200 companies have reported the cases, forming 10% of the target volume. While the Dodd-Frank Act has to its credit the attainment of substantial decline in revenue of militias i.e. by 65%, the major challenge underlying the crisis is that as high as 65% of current trade involves smuggling of the minerals.