Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports of children working in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; what measures they are taking to assess the dangers to children working in such mines; and what action they plan to take to help eliminate child labour and promote safe working conditions in those mines.

The UK is concerned about reports of modern slavery and child labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and UK officials have raised these concerns with the government. The UK has implemented a number of programmes to tackle modern slavery in DRC, including a programme with the Carter Centre to improve transparency and governance in the mining sector, working with civil society and mining companies. The UK is committed to ending modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking worldwide by 2030, including the eradication of child labour, as unanimously adopted in the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

Under the Modern Slavery Act, all large businesses in the UK with a turnover of £36m or more are required to publish an annual transparency statement detailing the steps they have taken to prevent modern slavery from occurring in their business and supply chains. As an active member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), we encourage states and those working in the industry to implement the OECD’s Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High Risk Areas. In 2018/19 we funded the OECD to run dissemination and capacity-building projects to support implementation of the guidance.