Gold in electronics may come from child labour

Plenty of electronics contains little pieces of gold: on an annual basis, some 279,000 kg is used. Too often, child labour is involved in the acquisition of that gold, while few electronics companies seem to know where their gold comes from.

Need more supervision

As it is very hard to ascertain where the gold comes from, companies have no way of knowing how it is obtained either. Child labour in gold mines is not uncommon, with an estimated 1 million children worldwide active in the industry. 

Stop Kinderarbeid (Stop Child Labour) feels electronics companies have to claim responsibility and actively collaborate to eradicate child labour. Only Microsoft, Apple and Fairphone have jumped on board so far. “No company can confirm that no child labour was involved in their product”, Stop Kinderarbeid’s Sophie Ovaa told RTL. “That is also why consumers do not know. Companies do nothing to remedy the situation at this point.”

That is why the organization wants more supervision, mainly in small mines. “You have formal gold mines, with good supervision and really no child labour. We should also have more supervision in smaller mines.”