OIM — Remediation Guidelines for Victims of Human Trafficking in Mineral Supply Chains

Glob­al sup­ply chains in the elec­tron­ics sec­tor are com­plex and involve a wide range of actors, work­ing in mul­ti­ple sites, with goods and work­ers cross­ing mul­ti­ple bor­ders. In par­tic­u­lar, min­er­al sup­ply chains are high­ly glob­al­ized, and respon­si­ble sourc­ing of min­er­als, includ­ing tin, tan­ta­lum, tung­sten and gold (3TG), is high on the agen­da of many lead­ing down­stream companies.

While the min­ing indus­try, includ­ing arti­sanal and small-scale min­ing (ASM), sup­ports the liveli­hoods of mil­lions of peo­ple glob­al­ly and plays an impor­tant role in pover­ty alle­vi­a­tion and devel­op­ment, it can also have a neg­a­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact and con­tribute to human rights and labour rights abus­es. Reports of human traf cking, forced labour, and child labour, have raised seri­ous con­cerns for down­stream com­pa­nies about the social cost of doing busi­ness with the min­ing indus­try, espe­cial­ly with­in ASM.

As out­lined in the Unit­ed Nations’ Guid­ing Prin­ci­ples on Busi­ness and Human Rights, busi­ness­es not only have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­vent human rights abus­es, but also to pro­vide reme­dies to vic­tims where harm has occurred. While the elec­tron­ic indus­try has made mean­ing­ful progress to pre­vent human rights abus­es through greater due dili­gence, the devel­op­ment of guid­ance and best prac­tices to help busi­ness­es reme­di­ate adverse human rights impacts when they do occur has been limited.