This report investigates conditions under which children work in informal gold mines in Ghana and Mali, attempts to map gold value chains from mines to electronics, and has engaged with major electronics companies to assess their policies on responsible value chain management. This report has been conducted as a combination of desk study and field research in Ghana’s Ashanti region and Mali’s Sikasso region in the spring of 2013. On both field studies, small scale mining operations were visited, and stakeholders such as child labourers, parents, adult miners, mining operation supervisors, local chiefs and school headmasters, gold dealers, and local NGOs and other experts were interviewed. It was not possible to arrange an interview with Ghana’s Mining Commission or Precious Mineral Marketing Company, who both have been sent questions by mail afterwards, to which they have not responded. In Mali, regional chiefs, local chiefs, and mayors were interviewed. The sources for the desk research are academic overviews, reports from major human rights and labour organisations, such as Human Rights Watch, ILO and MakeItfair. The report uses Data from the World Bank, market analysis companies, and industry organisations.

The report chooses to focus on the 5 largest computer brands and the 5 largest phone brands on the European market, to which a survey on gold sourcing practices were sent. Acer, Lenovo, Asus and Dell did not respond, though they were contacted several times over a period of more than two months. Samsung, Apple, Research In Motion, Nokia, HTC and HP responded. For those companies who did not respond, company policies
available on websites were used.

A list of initiatives for responsible production and sourcing of minerals has also been compiled. Some of them have direct relevance for the issue of child labour in gold value chains; some have relevance in terms of value chain management of other minerals, to show what is done on industry level.