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20th October 2010 -
Congolese Women
Speak Out:
''CONGOLESE HOLOCAUST'
The DRC our country has been branded: ‘The rape capital
of the world, the worst place in the world to be a woman,
and many other depressing descriptions.’
The deadliest war in the world is raging in the DR Congo
right now, and conflict minerals are helping to fuel the
violence. Yet they continue to make their way into our electronics.
Portraits of War:
The Democratic Republic of Congo Exhibition |
Armed groups continue to massacre
villages and rape women in large numbers, sustaining themselves
by controlling minerals mines and trading routes. Despite
the presence of the world’s largest UN peacekeeping
operation, violent conflict never actually ceased in Congo.
Estimates of those killed in this conflict are more than 6
million, and the majority is women and children. For
more than a century, the Democratic Republic of the Congo
has been plagued by regional conflict and a deadly scramble
for its vast natural resources. In fact, greed for Congo’s
natural resources has been a principal driver of atrocities
and conflict throughout Congo’s tortured history.
In eastern Congo today, these mineral resources are financing
multiple armed groups, many of whom use mass rape as a deliberate
strategy to intimidate and control local populations, thereby
securing control of mines, trading routes, and other strategic
areas.
Conflict Minerals in Your Electronics
Profit from the mineral trade is one of the main motives
for armed groups on all sides of the conflict in eastern
Congo - the deadliest since World War II. Armed groups earn
hundreds of millions of dollars per year by trading four
main minerals: the ores that produce tin, tantalum, tungsten,
and gold. This money enables the militias to purchase large
numbers of weapons and continue their campaign of brutal
violence against civilians, with some of the worst abuses
occurring in mining areas. The majority of these minerals
eventually wind up in electronic devices such as cell phones,
portable music players, and computers. Given the lack of
a transparent minerals supply chain, consumers throughout
the world have no way to ensure that their purchases are
not financing armed groups that regularly commit atrocities,
including mass rape.
Multimedia Resources
Congo's conflict minerals leave a trail of destruction as
they make their way from the mines in eastern Congo to the
mobile phone in your pocket. How does the process work?
What is the human cost? What can consumers do to help end
the violence being fueled by Congo's illicit mineral trade?
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Victoria Dove Dimandja
speakingabout the
Plight of Congolese Women |
You Can Help End the War
The conflict minerals problem is complicated, and the suffering
in Congo is immense. But, because, we as electronics consumers
are attached so directly to the problem, we can actually
play a role in ending the violence.
We must raise our collective voice as consumers and denounce
and condemn the violence. By pressuring those in power,
the EU, UN Security Council members, and electronics companies
to remove conflict minerals from their supply chains, we
can help remove fuel from the fire in Congo.
Victoria Dove Dimandja
and Jose Musau Kalanda,
speaking
about the Plight of Congolese Women |
More pressure needs to be placed on the multitude of multinational
corporations, along with their allies Rwanda and Uganda,
who have been at the root of the conflict since 1996. They
must stop the grotesque crimes they are committing, fuelled
by the looting of Congo’s riches.
Victoria Dove Dimandja -
Congolese Human Right Campaigner
Liberation
Congolese Women Group
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