WUNRN
Sexual Violence in
Legislation to regulate mining in the DRC may be a step in the
right direction, but many problems remain.
3
September 2012 By Carol Mann, Alphonse Maindo
A tantalite mine in the DRC. Photo by Responsible Sourcing Network
The pervasive militarism,
prevalent sexual violence and vast mineral wealth in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo (DRC) are linked.
It was with this in mind that, on August
22, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
– the body which regulates the securities industry and markets in the United
States – adopted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act. The act requires public
companies to disclose whether minerals used in their products originate from
the DRC or any adjoining country.
Expanding on the original law passed
in 2010 and known in the DRC as the ‘Loi Obama’, companies must now take
greater measures of due diligence and monitor every step of transactions to
ensure transparency and accountability.
But while these measures are a step in the right direction,
progress is slow, gaping loopholes remain, and the nexus between violence (in
particular sexual violence) and the global economy remains insufficiently
explored.
For decades, mineral smuggling has been a way of sponsoring
guerrilla wars in the region, and the aim of the law is to ensure that all
public companies trading in these commodities make sure that their business
does not benefit warlords in the region, particularly in the eastern DRC.
One of the main drivers behind the legislation is widespread
sexual violence and rape in the region.
In August 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for
example, highlighted
the link between armed conflict, sexual violence, and minerals when she visited
eastern Congo, and Margot Wallstrom, the UN's special representative on sexual
violence in conflict, famously referred to the
DRC as “the rape capital of the world”.
Yet in many reports and in much work done on rape prevention,
the economic background underpinnings of the region are rarely referenced.
Oxfam, for example, called
on the Congolese government and the international community to “increase
provision of medical care for survivors of sexual, violence, ensure that the
protection provided by the UN peacekeepers and Congolese security services is
tailored to local realities and to reform the Congolese security sector and
justice system”. In a similar vein, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague’s
commission aimed to tackle sexual violence by setting up a team of experts using
the “skills of doctors, lawyers, police, psychologists, forensic specialists
and experts in the care and protection of victims and witnesses”.
Such recommendations, although crucial and of value, do not take
into consideration deeper dynamics. These proposals fail to address the fact
that behind the warlords’ activities lies a complex political and economic
situation in which global market interests are at stake. Additionally, it must
be noted that, more often than not, companies do not have private armies and
depend on local militias to access mines and even organise their exploitation.
In this context, mass rape has been used increasingly as a form
of terror in mining zones, employed in ways to facilitate armed militias
gaining access to and maintaining control over priceless resources. Indeed,
prevalence of rape seems to be correlated to the presence of mines. According
to Venantie
Bisimwa, a women’s rights activist from Bukavu, “rape is the most
economical form of violence against a community: families are instantaneously
destroyed”.
To address this, industry has started trying to regulate the
trade underlying the prevalence of sexual violence in the region. The
International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (ITSCI)
has been working on increasing transparency in accordance with Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) rulings and, according to the
most recent Enough Project report,
a number of companies have started to take measures limiting the use of
conflict minerals.
The Frank-Dodd law originally came about as a result of
campaigning by groups such as Human Rights Watch,
the Enough
Project and Global
Witness, and since the passing of the law in 2010, companies with
registered trading houses have officially adopted the appropriate due diligence
measures. But the act has not been a silver bullet.
Chinese-owned businesses are not subject to the law and do not
yet follow the Frank-Dodd requirements. To fully address the issue of conflict
minerals, this blind spot will have to be examined. The act has also been
criticised for placing the onus on companies and thus removing responsibility
from the Congolese government even though corrupt government officials and
groups linked to the Congolese
army (FARDC) have played a significant part in controlling mines. Greater
research into the identity of individual armed groups, their national and
international partners and their mode of functioning would be necessary to make
the law truly effective.
Other criticisms address the virtual embargo on minerals from
the region that has followed the act, the gradual closing down of mines, and
the loss of work for countless Congolese workmen and local communities.
Furthermore, there is evidence that mineral-smuggling from the
DRC to Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi has increased. Rwanda, which has relatively
few mines to speak of, is one the region’s main exporters, and exports
from there have gone up since the application of the Dodd-Frank act. The Great
Lakes region will be under great scrutiny following the reform act, but routes
that send minerals to China and elsewhere will also require greater monitoring,
especially as some companies are thought to employ circuitous routes through
Asia where the components are made up.
While a promising start, the Dodd-Frank act has considerable
practical shortcomings and insufficiently addresses the complex nexus of the
global economy and local militarism, abuse and rape. Along with tackling these
weaknesses, however, a number of other things are also urgently needed to
complement industry efforts. Aid agencies, for example, must cooperate and
coordinate to provide a holistic and coherent approach in the fight against
sexual violence and the trade of conflict materials, while greater security
must be ensured in the region. One preliminary step in this difficult and
long-term task could be to map resource mines against cases of rape to see how
and where they coincide, and to further highlight the link between the two.