Disclosure and Transparency

ICAR works to support transparency and disclosure over non-financial information, including about human rights policies, procedures, risks and steps taken to address or mitigate against impacts. Our seminal work in this arena was to support the passage of Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act pertaining to conflict minerals.

Embedded in the Dodd-Frank Act signed by President Obama is a truly historic regulatory provision — one targeted at eliminating funding for armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that have been perpetrating horrific violence. These groups finance themselves through trade in four main minerals: tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold. It is these minerals that form the basis of metals used in diverse technological products sold worldwide, including mobile telephones, laptop computers, and digital video recorders.

The illegal profits made from these minerals are just some of the consequences of the unregulated and unrelenting mining in this region. Other human rights abuses, including gender based violence such as sexual slavery, forced recruitment, forced prostitution and rape, have reached catastrophic proportions, with local health clinics in South Kivu reporting that, on average, 40 women are raped daily. In fact, sexual violence is an active weapon of war used by armed groups in the region. In investigating and reporting on the mass rapes of over 300 civilians in August 2010, the UN Joint Human Rights Office in the DRC emphasized the link between the violence and competition over the mineral resources in North Kivu province. According to a study by the International Rescue Committee released in January 2008, conflict and the humanitarian crisis in the DRC have resulted in the death of an estimated 5,400,000 people since 1998 and continue to cause as many as 45,000 deaths each month.