DRC protests against US labeling of child labor in mines

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has protested against US labeling of child labor in mines, with Kinshasa saying the assessment does not take into account steps taken to improve governance of the sector.

This week’s comments followed a report from the US Department of Labor, which said cobalt ore from the DRC is on the 2024 list of goods produced by child or forced labor.

In an information note addressed to the DRC government dated September 24, the US states that this mineral poses a high risk because it comes from artisanal mines. It also linked forced labor to artisanal and industrial mining.

But the Congolese government argued that the report “deliberately ignores local realities and damages the international reputation of the Congolese mining sector.” In a press release, the Congolese government denounced the inclusion of Congo’s cobalt on the blacklist.

“It tends to question the effectiveness of the international compliance monitoring and due diligence mechanisms in the supply chain, recognized in the areas of human rights, labor and safety, to which manufacturers are rigorously subjected by independent international structures working directly with Western multinationals (European and American). to take end users into account,” the statement said.

The DRC is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, with about 70 percent of the world’s deposits of the mineral essential for the production of batteries for electric cars.

The Ministry of Labor list could now be consulted by civil society seeking to highlight labor rights violations in global value chains, and by companies working to prevent and mitigate such violations.

“The inclusion of DRC cobalt in the list of products subject to forced labor was motivated by a 2023 Ilab-funded study, which found that workers in industrial and artisanal mines were subject to forced labor. The study highlighted indicators of forced labor, including excessive overtime, hazardous work, dismissal, unpaid wages, fines, debt bondage and other negative human rights consequences. report states.

The Congolese government says it has implemented a number of reforms to improve regulation of the sector, including the creation of the General Inspectorate of Mines, the revitalization of the Authority for the Regulation of Subcontracting in the Private Sector (ARSP), the operationalization of the Authority for the Regulation and Control of Strategic Mineral Substances Markets (Arecoms) and the promotion of transparency in supply chains and membership of international initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (Eiti).

“Child labor and forced labor in informal, and therefore illegal, artisanal mining. Founded in 2019, Entreprise Générale du Cobalt is working to make artisanal mining viable through strictly ethical, responsible and transparent measures in cobalt mining in accordance with Congolese laws and international standards in this field.”

Générale du Cobalt, whose goal is to oversee artisanal cobalt production, did not become operational until 2023. It faced challenges in managing the full complexity of artisanal cobalt production. Éric Kalala, director, admitted that he did not know the exact number of artisanal cobalt workers.

The Service d’assistance et d’encadrement des mines artisanale et à petite échelle (Saemape), which is supposed to monitor artisanal and small-scale mining in the DRC, also does not know the number of artisanal players.

In the country, artisanal mining is a source of great chaos, even though it is legal. Sometimes operators struggle to draw a line between apprenticeship and child labor, as most mining operations are family-owned businesses.

President Félix Tshisekedi and his officials have argued that the war in the DRC is being fueled by armed groups and multinational companies with the aim of plundering its mineral resources.

This could explain the existence of armed groups in the mining areas. Rebels in the east have consolidated their control over the Rubaya coltan mining region, for example by imposing a tax on production estimated at $300,000 in monthly revenues, said Bintou Keita, the UN secretary general’s representative in the DRC.

The trade in minerals from the Rubaya region accounts for more than 15 percent of the global supply of tantalum, which is produced by artisanal miners.

Several UN reports show that artisanal mining by armed groups is the cause of massacres in Congo. Donat Kambola, a civil activist in Kolwezi, the cobalt heart of the DRC, said this The EastAfrican that artisanal mining is “a reign of chaos.”

“The picture is unfortunately bleak, despite what we are told, especially about the increase in incomes in the artisanal mining sector in the provinces. But these human rights issues, issues of compensation and transparency, remain. Therefore, I believe that no matter how the law is reformed, the evidence on the ground says otherwise. The sector has not improved. The perennial problem is the inability to create craft zones. As a result, artisanal miners still break into industrial sites. The other problem is identifying artisanal miners,” Kambola argued.

In the DRC, mining generates significant financial resources, which influential political actors rent to workers, sometimes in violation of legal procedures. Miners and politicians are often connected or related, he said.

“All Chinese or Lebanese entrepreneurs involved in the mining sector have their ‘umbrellas’ (protectors), and there is chaos on the ground,” he said.