Hi BNT, I’ve spent several years researching issues related to conflict minerals, artisanal mining and relevant legislation in the EU and US on the topic, so while I also can’t provide any guarantees, I do have a little bit of background on the topic. Having said this, I wanted to provide a few responses to your post:
It would, indeed, but this isn’t quite what Fairphone is doing. Per the usual definitions, there are four conflict minerals (usually referred to as “3TG” - tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold). Afaik FP has not gotten too far with tungsten yet (see blog post here), but for the other three, they are working with established initiatives that were created specifically to mine and certify minerals that do not support the conflict in the DRC and Great Lakes Region (for tin and tantalum), or that are fair trade and also conflict-free (in the case of gold). These initiatives are “Scaling Up Mineral Trade” (formerly the Conflict Free Tin Initiative) for tin, “Solutions for Hope” for tantalum, and Fair Trade for gold.
Basically, FP is sourcing these resources from other, already existing organizations that have put in a lot of effort to ensure that the minerals are sourced without supporting the conflict in the DRC.* This means that a) FP is doing more than asking nicely and b) the actual work of ensuring the conflict-free status is done by initiatives specifically dedicated to this issue, not by FP themselves (who would never be able to do this in addition to everything else they do).
I am currently not aware of an initiative that is working on sourcing conflict-free tungsten, which is likely why, in combination with the Dodd-Frank Act, tungsten miners in the Great Lakes Region have mostly lost their livelihoods, because companies no longer dare to purchase tungsten from the region. This is part of what makes the conflict issue so complicated - avoiding conflict by purchasing minerals from other countries means robbing miners of their source of income. Obviously supporting conflicts isn’t good either, but it’s always a difficult balance and this is precisely why Fairphone is trying to stay in the region rather than sourcing minerals from other countries, where conflict wouldn’t be an issue to begin with.
As for the original accusation of the African coworker, I do not see Fairphone “boldly say(ing) that they are sourcing mineral exports (tungsten) from Rwanda”, but rather that they have visited two Rwandan mines to explore the possibility of sourcing conflict-free tungsten from there. If the tungsten comes from Rwandan mines, it can’t really be pilfered from the DRC. And while it’s not okay for Rwanda and Uganda to be pilfering resources from the DRC, it’s also problematic for Rwandan miners (who may not have anything to do with the conflict or pilfering but are simply trying to earn a living) not to be able to sell their tungsten anymore because everyone is afraid of supporting either the DRC conflict or the pilfering activities.
For a detailed review of the impacts of the Dodd Frank Act and CFTI/Solutions for Hope on the situation in the DRC, see this report here by the Enough Project. The Enough Project was one of the first and continues to be one of the most important advocates with regard to the DRC conflict and they spent extensive time interviewing people in the DRC over a four-month period to come to the conclusions in this particular report. If you read the report (or even just the Executive Summary at the beginning), you’ll notice that their overall conclusion is quite positive, but that they do not deny that there are still quite a few problems that have not yet been solved.
Have you read what Fairphone has published on their blog under the Mining category? I would argue that traveling to the DRC, Rwanda, and China (trip to the gold mine) is “investigating beyond mere statements of their suppliers”. And while it’s certainly true that problems remain, resource mining is an incredibly complex issue (conflict financing is just one of many problems associated with the sector) and no matter how hard we work on it, it is unlikely that it will be a completely clean and “unproblematic” sector any time in the next 2-3 decades. But if we don’t start somewhere, it will also never get better and so I think supporting a project that is trying very hard to source fairER, conflict freeER minerals is the best thing we can do right now. Regardless of the fact that the Fairphone isn’t 100% fair yet (or even still far away from that), their activities are creating more awareness for these issues and more pressure on large mainstream electronics companies to change their own practices. And perhaps most importantly: Fairphone is providing a proof-of-concept that it is possible to produce electronics using more ethically sourced minerals. This eliminates the ever-popular excuse of “our supply chains are very complex and changing them/making them more transparent is just not feasible.”
*Note that conflict-free and fair trade are two different issues. At the moment, based on the Dodd-Frank Act in the US, “conflict-free” is usually used to mean “not supporting the conflict in the DRC”. In the proposed conflict minerals legislation in the EU, “conflict-free” will likely mean not supporting conflicts in any country, so the definition is more general and not limited to the DRC and Great Lakes Region. But as mentioned,the EU legislation hasn’t been passed yet since the EU Parliament rejected the first draft it received, because it wanted a mandatory rather than voluntary rule. This, by the way, was an unexpected and significant victory in the fight for fairer minerals! More information on this issue can be found here.