Child Labour In Congo

As a mother of two amazingly wonderful little people who bless my life every day with their sweetness and wonder, I sit trying to write this article which encompasses the death of not one, not two, but several million Congolese children. I can't process the horror. I can't image for one second what I would do if someone did to my children what is being done to the children in that country. As a parent, what would I do if my child did not come home? Here in North America there are so many avenues to respond to the crisis of a missing child, but in Congo, if your child does not come home, you can assume only the worst and hope the same fate does not befall you. How can the world.. how can I live with such a double standard?

I wonder how many times someone looks at their laptop or their cell phone and thinks "there is coltan mined by children in this product." Children who die because of disease, starvation and unsafe working conditions. Children who die because the military, the very people who are suppose to keep them safe, abuse and then murder them to hush their crimes. I try to shake the pictures of those children out of my head but they have now painted themselves into my heart.

I didn't realize when I began researching this project that it would be anything other than a writing assignment. I had no clue what I was opening myself up to and I don't know if I can delve any deeper into the truth, because the truth of the situation in the DRC is one of horror. Five and a half million people have died there in the last 10 years of which they estimate half to be children.

The war is brutal and is fueled in large part by the richness of the minerals that are being mined. Coltan(Columbite-tantalite)which is used to produce tantalum capacitors and other components of modern electronic devices as well as the highly in demand copper are being sold on the black market. That money is funding the purchase of weapons, ensuring more fighting and continuing the cycle of death. Eighty percent of the world's coltan comes from the mines in the DR of Congo. The technique used to extract it from the earth is similar to the process used in the 1800's to mine gold. Sloshing the silt through a sieve and the heavier than mud coltan settles to the bottom and is then scooped out. A seasoned worker processes one kilogram per day and is paid $1.00 for their work unless that worker is a child and then they are paid twenty cents to dig in the mud and rocks with crude implements. Without proper nutrition and clean water, they become weak with sickness and starvation. Many die. They breathe in the mine dust, damaging their lungs. They are injured or killed when the walls of the mining pits collapse. Children who should be in school are forced to work in brutal conditions. Often times they are the primary or solitary wage earners in their family. Many of the working children are left as head of their household because one or both parents are dead either through illness or slaughter. The odds are good it was a little of both.

It is vitally important and necessary to bring awareness to the situation in the DRC. Noise has to be made and action has to be taken, but how many battles of injustice can we fight at once? As a nation, how many of the world's issues do we have to tackle? Just who's responsibility is it to save those children? I believe the answer lies in knowledge. Accountability, responsible trading practices and as consumers, we need to hold the manufacturers to a standard.

In October of 2007 the U.S. Government announced they were providing sixteen million dollars in grants to help end abusive child labor in Africa. The funds will be distributed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo and Uganda. In the DRC, it will be administered through the Save The Children Foundation in association with the U.S. based American Center for International Labor Solidarity and will be used to provide children in need with access to quality basic education and vocational training opportunities and to collect reliable data on child labor in these countries.

The U.S. Department of labor identified the Democratic Republic of Congo in a 2006 report on "The Worst Forms of Child Labor."

It is apparent that people are starting to take notice, but so much more can be done and should be done. Allocation of money for educating the children is a great start. For every dollar spent on educating a child, it is estimated the return to be seven dollars. Knowledge is power. Education is the key.

But what about educating the consumer? If manufactures and retailers were held to the standard of Fair Trade practices, then they would not purchase raw materials or finished product that employed the use of child labor. Although eighty per cent of coltan is presently being purchased from Congo, Canada and Australia are also known suppliers of the mineral, so why not buy from them thereby forcing the mining companies in Congo to adhere to a standard that refuses to allow child labor? If the consumer refused to buy products that do not display the Fair Trade label, then manufacturers and retailers would have no choice but to provide Fair Trade product.

I have read about the UN Millennium Development project and the Stop Child Labor organization. Both are visionary and deserve more attention and support.

So much is being done or is seeming to be done based on the claims by various government and world crisis agencies and yet children are still dying heinous deaths every day at an alarming rate. We can cover our eyes, change the channel, refuse to educate ourselves and those children are still going to die. That is the reality.

I have heard so many things over the years about the horrors in Congo but to be honest I didn't really pay that much attention. I absorbed only enough to know that I didn't want to know more.

As I rummage through all of the notes I have made, I wonder just how far is too far away from a situation to feel a moral obligation to take on some responsibility for the atrocities that are happening in other countries? Where is the line drawn when a person can walk away and say that it's not their problem?

Who should take a stand against abusive child labor being used in Congo to dig out coltan? We all should. It is the responsibility of everyone; governments, International Organizations, corporate bodies and consumers to ensure they do not support any trade with countries that do not adhere to the core labor standards, of which one of those standards is not to employ child labor.

We can live our lives surrounded with cotton and candy and accept them for what they are or we can dig in the ground and learn how the cotton grows and watch as the candy is made.