Most electronics devices contain minerals that originate in the mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, often called “conflict minerals.”
And as you read this, men, women and children are being threatened with force – often at gunpoint –to work in Congolese mines where conflict minerals for our electronics devices come from.
While many big electronics companies have already taken steps to get rid of conflict minerals in their supply chain, Nintendo has yet to join the electronics industry audit program for conflict-free smelters nor has it required its suppliers to use only conflict-free smelters – the bare minimum requirement for taking action on conflict minerals.
Call on Nintendo to take the first step toward ensuring their products are free of conflict minerals mined with slavery by auditing their supply chain according to industry standards and making this information public.
To Satoru Iwata, CEO of Nintendo Co., Ltd and Nintendo North America
The violence and slavery associated with the production of minerals in the Congo is devastating. While other leading brands are making efforts to make their products free of slave-mined 'conflict minerals', we are disappointed by your score of Zero in the Enough Project's recent industry ranking. Please take the first step towards making your products free of conflict minerals by auditing your supply chain.
On average we spend 7.5 hours a day using electronics – but have you ever wondered what goes into these devices or how they’re made?
In a special Walk Free podcast, global experts Kevin Bales, Ben Skinner and Sasha Lezhnev expose the links between conflict minerals, modern slavery and the electronics industry.
Ben Skinner is the Senior Vice President of Tau Investment Management. He is the author of, 'A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face With Modern-Day Slavery'. Ben Skinner was named one of National Geographic’s Adventurers of the Year in 2008 for his under-cover investigative journalism in illegal brothels on several continents.
Kevin Bales is the co-founder and former president of Free The Slaves. He has written extensively on the issue of modern slavery and his book ‘Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy’ was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2008, Utne Reader named him one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World."
Sasha Lezhnev is the Senior Policy Analyst of The Enough Project. He is the author of 'Crafting Peace: Strategies to Deal with Warlords in Collapsing States'. Lezhnev led the Enough Project’s ground-breaking report ‘Taking Conflict Out of Consumer Gadgets’ which ranked the world’s largest electronics companies which ranked the world’s largest electronics companies on their efforts toward using conflict-free minerals in their products.
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