With more than a billion cellphones sold globally every year, the mobile industry is craving for raw materials. The quest for minerals has fuelled the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where armed groups fight for the control of mining regions. Hence the name “blood cellphones”.

“In the jungle, small planes land about 20 to 30 times a day. Once on the ground, they are stacked with truckloads of minerals - destination Rwanda, Burundi or Uganda, where the transaction is legally recorded,” says Ethiopian-born Saeda Nourhussen in her latest book Bloedmobieltjes (Blood cellphones, ed.). She describes in her book a complex and bloody traffic in the eastern DRC.

“The minerals used to manufacture cellphones often come from mines controlled by armed groups, thus enabling the latter to acquire more arms and further terrorise civilian populations”.

Indifference
“Close to 10 million people have been killed, directly or indirectly, by the conflict and thousands of women are raped every year”, explains Maurice Namwira, head of Heritiers de la Justice, a human rights organisation based in Bukavu, southern Kivu.

Namwira deplores the indifference of the international community to a conflict that has been ravaging the region for the past fifteen years: “Mining activities by armed groups have created a climate of permanent insecurity”. According to him, “these regions completely elude government control; therefore anyone can come in and start mining”.

Traceability
The cellphone industry has generated 235 billion US dollars in 2010, a 7.9% increase compared to 2009 figures. However, according to the Dutch Consumer Council, no electronics company could unfortunately guarantee that their products were free from “blood minerals”.

“The minerals, which originate from the DRC and other countries, are dispatched to a relatively small number of foundries. They are then mixed and processed to manufacture electronic parts”, explains Marshall Chase, adviser for Business Social Responsibility (BSR), a multinational support platform.

That is why, according to Chase, it is necessary to develop effective ways to trace the origin of the minerals: “The implementation of certification systems, enabling the distinction between legal and illegal minerals, will boost the legal trade and stimulate the local economy. Because there are also legal mines in the DRC”.

Roles and responsibilities
It is in the spirit of that effort that the country’s president, Joseph Kabila, imposed an official six-month ban on mining activities, in September 2010. However, “that measure failed”, says Namwira. “It only strengthened illegal miners, who continued their mining activities while depriving local populations of the economic benefits normally associated with exploiting minerals”.

In industrialised countries, various steps are taken in the fight against illegal mineral imports. The United States have enforced the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, requiring electronics companies to report the origin of their minerals. The European Parliament is currently drafting a legislation aimed at guaranteeing the traceability of mineral imports.

Global effort
However, Chase insists that “the causes of the conflict go far beyond the trade of minerals. Mining is not the cause of the conflict in the DRC”.

“The fight against the trade of illegal minerals in eastern DRC will require a global effort”, Nourhussen concludes. This conflict exposes the ravaging effects of a growing global demand in minerals on a country struggling to regulate its production. “People are born here and are therefore tied to the land. They are crying out for peace”, concludes Namwira.