LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - The Democratic Republic of Congo will launch this month new monitoring and tracing mechanisms to tackle child labour in cobalt and copper production, a mines ministry official said on Thursday.
Sourcing of the metals has come into focus as manufacturers scramble to secure supplies of cobalt, a key component in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, as production of electric cars surges is by far the world's biggest producer of cobalt, accounting for more than half of global supply. But rights groups say child labour is used to produce some of that cobalt.Amnesty International calculates a fifth of the country's cobalt output is mined by hand by informal miners, including children Mikandji, the director general of the Ministry ofMines' certification agency, CEEC, said the Congo had eliminated the practice in the production of diamonds, iron ore and tungsten. Now it has moved on to tackle child labour at copper and cobalt mines, Mikandji told a metals conference in London.
"There (in copper and cobalt mines) we have stepped in tolook at putting in traceability and monitoring systems,"Mikandji said. "In fact, these mechanisms that I have justmentioned will be operational this very month, March 2018."
The new mechanisms would apply to artisanal or small scaleminers, their customers and operations run by both small andlarge scale mining firms, he said.
Congo's parliament approved a new mining code in lateJanuary that would raise taxes and royalties and eliminatestability agreements for miners such as Randgold Resources RRS.L , Ivanhoe IVN.TO China Molybdenum 603993.SS andGlencore GLEN.L .
Mikandji declined to comment on whether President JosephKabila had signed the code into law. Last week, a senior aide toKabila said the president he had not yet the constitution, the president has 15 days from thetime parliament sends him the bill to either sign it into law orreturn it to parliament for further deliberation. If he takes noaction, the bill automatically becomes law.
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