Chloe Christman's blog

Maryland’s legislation addressing the use of conflict minerals from eastern Congo in electronics products breezed through an important hurdle over the weekend, passing the House of Delegates unanimously on Saturday. The State Senate passed a similar bill by a vote of 46-0 two weeks earlier, leaving only a largely procedural reconciliation process between the House and Senate bills before a final version is sent to Governor Martin O’Malley’s desk.  Read More »

We’ve learned that the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, after stalling for over a year, intends to release weak conflict minerals regulations essentially written by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers.

Raise Hope for Congo activists are not letting them off the hook that easily.  Read More »

Since the early 1900s countries around the world have celebrated International Women’s Day as a time to recognize the role of women in society and mobilize against injustices specifically impacting half of the world’s population. At Enough, rather than confining our commemoration to just one day—March 8—we’re giving a special focus to women all this week, to highlight how the conflicts we’re working to end affect women and girls, and to recognize the work of heroes advocating on their behalf.

For Day 3 of our International Women’s Week coverage, Chloe Christman on Enough’s Raise Hope for Congo campaign profiles a Congolese lawyer committed to the fight of bringing justice to victims of sexual violence.  Read More »

Maryland's conflict minerals legislation faced no opposition at a hearing before the State Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee last week, clearing the path for the next step in the legislative process.  Read More »

We set out to eastern Congo a few weeks ago to highlight what life has been like for five people surrounded by this conflict that has lasted for over 15 years, and each person we met reshaped any preconceived notions about where this journey would take us. We’ve returned even more curious than when we began, inspired to continue to do everything we can from our position to end the conflict, and excited to share with you faces beyond statistics that we’ve gotten to know over the past couple of weeks.  Read More »

Over the past several months, the Raise Hope for Congo Campaign, in partnership with Care2 and change.org, has been gathering signatures from activists around the country calling on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a leader for certification for Congo’s conflict minerals.  Read More »

Jon Stewart took up the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act in his show last week, reminding us of what we’re up against in the fight for strong implementation of the bill’s Section 1502 on conflict minerals. In a way that no one but John Oliver can pull off, HR 4173 is brought to life, looking quite tattered. So much so that Jon Stewart asks, “What the hell happened to you?”  Read More »

Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Ruined” has been traveling the country in recent months and has arrived at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. At Enough, we have long promoted the play and worked with Nottage and the New York cast to bring a staged reading to the Kennedy Center in 2009. We are thrilled that a full production has now opened in Washington, so that audiences here – with a concentration of policy makers and influentials – can be moved by the story.  Read More »

Today, the Pittsburgh City Council unanimously passed a proclamation on conflict minerals in Congo, becoming the first city in the country to call for "electronic companies and other industries to take the necessary steps to remove conflict minerals from their supply chain."

Introduced by Councilman Doug Shields, the proclamation further states that the City of Pittsburgh urges the U.S. government to take the lead in helping establish an international certification scheme to ensure that minerals that end up in consumer electronics and other products don’t come from mines controlled by militia groups in eastern Congo.  Read More »

Last week, the Enough Project was proud to deliver citizen petitions with the names of nearly 26,000 concerned consumers to three commissioners at the Securities and Exchange Commission, calling for robust conflict minerals regulations as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.  Read More »