Stop Your Computer From Funding Rape and Killing in the Congo

For years, an ongoing conflict has wrecked the Congo, killing five million people. In addition to the tragic deaths, women and girls face the use of rape and gang rape as a regular weapon of war, and the sexual violence culture has spread to a massive increase in assaults perpetrated by civilians. And your computer, cell phone, or new gold necklace helps this widespread violence continue.

Tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold are vital components of electronics Americans love, and gold is also, of course, used in much jewelry. They're also mined in Congo, often by armed groups who sell these minerals to fund continued violence, rape, and killing. Unfortunately, electronics manufacturers haven't stepped up to provide certified conflict-free products, so whenever you're, say, reading a Change.org article on your laptop, you're using a machine that very likely contributed to the destruction in Congo. But John Prendergast and Sasha Lezhnev of the Enough Project write on the Human Rights cause that there's a new opportunity to change all this.

The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), a group run by six leaders of central African countries, has put its weight behind a plan to provide certification of conflict-free minerals. Congo's president, Joseph Kabila, even suspended mining in the east of the country, where the conflict rages -- yet military commanders have defied his orders, while smuggling continues and major companies have not gotten involved. To support this vital progress, the United States, a huge consumer of these war-stained electronics, must put real support behind it, or the hope for improvement will fall apart.

The Enough Project is running a petition asking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to back transparent, conflict-free supply chains for electronics. The SEC must set "Due Diligence" requirements for electronics and jewelry companies, and any manufacturers that use minerals that could be contributing to death and rape in the Congo, in order to make certain that the huge influence of American companies falls on the right side of this push to clean up conflict minerals.

Sign the petition today, so you can surf the web with a conscience as clean as those supply chains are going to be.

Photo credit: Enough Project