By Anna Genna-Hiroi
With the holiday season just around the corner, stores are now decorated with signs displaying “limited time offers,” promotions and sales to increase consumer spending. Customers are increasingly beginning to flood aisles and form long lines to purchase new electronics, game consoles and jewelry for their loved ones.
Anna Genna-Hiroi
However, as we celebrate and continue to purchase these products, the women and children of the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to suffer from the extraction and trade of conflict minerals — minerals that make up those same products that we consume. As you start planning for holiday gift-giving, I encourage you to conduct research behind these products before buying them to ensure that they are free of conflict minerals.
For centuries, due to colonial rule, foreign corporations have been extracting Congo’s natural resources by funding mining operations of 3TG+ minerals (tantalum, tungsten, tin, gold, etc.)
The extraction of these conflict minerals by Western nations has destabilized and impoverished Congo, giving rise to armed rebel groups and devastating wars. Since the beginning of the first war in 1996, over 6 million Congolese people have died, 7 million have been displaced and 25 million are facing starvation.
Armed groups have stormed villages, using mass rape as a weapon of war to terrorize, humiliate, and control civilian populations in order to create and control more mines, leaving villagers with no other option but to live in extreme poverty and work under inhumane conditions while making less than $2 a day. UNICEF has reported nearly 10,000 cases of sexual violence in just two months in early 2025, with almost half involving children, and a child is raped approximately every 30 minutes.
Yet, many of these conflict minerals are still being used to power phones, laptops, cars, and other modern-day products despite international attempts to regulate them. In 2010, the U.S. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which required companies to disclose their sourcing of conflict minerals while exercising supply chain due diligence in an attempt to increase transparency and prevent trade with armed groups.
However, the weak enforcement and implementation of this act, instead, unintentionally led to the creation of underground smuggling networks. Because of this, rebel groups continue to commit the same atrocities against the Congolese people.
Just recently, on Nov. 25, the International Rights Advocates filed a lawsuit against Apple for deceptive marketing in relation to its unethical sourcing of conflict minerals.
These minerals finance militias that destabilize entire regions, spreading cycles of poverty and insecurity. Families are torn apart, children are conscripted as soldiers, and communities live under constant threat of violence so that companies can access cheap raw materials.
I invite you to join in the effort to stop the cycle of violence caused by conflict minerals. Please visit my conflict minerals awareness Instagram account (@ethicsofdevicesdrc) for more information.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help the survivors of sexual violence in DRC. Contact members of Congress, urging them to require comprehensive, verifiable due diligence, independent audits and penalties for non-compliance. Conduct research to find if the products you purchase are free of conflict minerals and if their manufacturers comply with the due diligence policy and actually abide by it in practice. Contact the companies to inform them that you care about their products not containing conflict minerals fueling war and atrocities.
There are many ways you can help. Choose justice this holiday season.
Anna Genna-Hiroi is a Coronado High School senior and human rights advocate.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://elpasomatters.org/2025/12/08/opinion-conflict-minerals-impact-congo-holiday-gifts/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://elpasomatters.org”>El Paso Matters</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/elpasomatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/cropped-epmatters-favicon2.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
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