The Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) has submitted a Pledge of Action to accelerate global efforts to eradicate child labor and support the United Nations designation of 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labor.

The Promise of Action, administered by the International Labor Organization and Alliance 8.7, strengthens the ERG’s commitment to eradicating child labor in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), where around 40,000 children work in mining.

The group’s targeted community investment strategy is focused on keeping 2000 children out of artisanal and small-scale mining in 2021, and the ERG continues to carry out inspections to ensure their activities are in no way related to child labor.

The ERG has been involved in this campaign for several years and will continue to support the Good Shepherd International Foundation (GSIF), an organization with which it has been working together since 2017 as part of the Bon Pasteur Kolwezi program, to keep an increasing number of children away of mining.

As a founding member of the Global Battery Alliance (GBA), ERG will continue to play a leading role in raising awareness through actions across the battery value chain, focusing on Goal 8.7 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which aims to eradicate modern slavery and the Human trafficking and child labor. In late 2020, the group was among the first to contribute to the Fund for the Prevention of Child Labor in Mining Communities – a GBA collaboration that aimed to raise a total of $ 21 million to fund a series of over the next three years Initiatives to address the root causes of child labor in mining communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Benedikt Sobotka, CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, commented, “The elimination of child labor is critical to the group’s broader efforts to ensure a safe and sustainable future for the mining communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At ERG, we are fully committed to ending poor working conditions and child labor through our collaborations like the Global Battery Alliance and our support for organizations like the Good Shepherd International Foundation. For 2021, we envisioned new steps to tackle child labor in mining, including signing a new multi-year contract with GSIF to expand its support network to new communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and developing initiatives such as GBA’s battery passport, the this promises a fully traceable, ethical and sustainable battery supply chain. “

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/30042021/erg-makes-pledge-in-support-of-uns-year-for-the-elimination-of-child-labour/