A responsabilidade social das empresas transnacionais chinesas ligadas à mineração na República Democrática do Congo em matéria de exploração de trabalho infantil: potencialidades e limites

• Ano de defesa: 2023
• Autor(a) principal: Franco, Vilso da Silva
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Santa Maria; Brasil; Direito; UFSM; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Direito; Centro de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
• Palavras-chave em Português: Empresas transnacionais chinesas; Mineração; Trabalho infantil; Responsabilidade social empresarial; Chinese transnational corporations; Mining; Child labor; Corporate social responsibility; Sociétés transnationales chinoises; Exploitation minière; Travail des enfants; Responsabilité sociale des entreprises; CNPQ::CIENCIAS SOCIAIS APLICADAS::DIREITO
• Link de acesso: http://repositorio.ufsm.br/handle/1/29017

Characteristics of the current global economic model make it possible to intensify transnational business operations and decentralize production processes. Taking advantage of this possibility, the Chinese, in their stubborn saga to meet the needs of their dizzying economy, searched the world in search of mining concessions, until finding in the DRC, a significant part of the raw materials they so much need to operate their machine economic. The impasse is that the practices of relocation and internalization of Chinese transnational companies have been constantly motivated by the obtaining of advantages related to access to raw materials at affordable prices, non-compliance with labor and socio-environmental regulations and exploitation of child labor in their value chains. From another point of view, the mining industry is an important source of revenue for the DRC economy. It also represents one of the most dangerous sectors of work, particularly critical to the thousands of Congolese children for whom this activity symbolizes a source of livelihood. The dangers are so obvious and extreme that there are no conditions – including poverty – under which child labor in mining can be tolerated. In this work there are children who collect rocks containing cobalt, wash them and separate this ore before being sold to Chinese ETNs for the manufacture of smartphones, computers, video games, electric cars, among others. There are also others that, thanks to their small physical constitution, are the only ones able to penetrate the narrow galleries where they obtain, for example, coltan, an ore widely used in the manufacture of hi-tech devices. It is estimated that for every kilo of coltan extracted, two children die. It is in this context that the problem that guides this research emerges: What are the potentials and limits of domestic, regional and global legal instruments that can be mobilized, in terms of attribution of Social Responsibility to Chinese TNCs linked to the mining sector, in view of the exploitation of child labor between 2014 and 2019 in the DRC? To face this research problem, the first part of the research will focus on the analysis of the world of “being”, of objective and subjective realities, that is, the world of facts that involve Sino-Congolese relations, specifically, the triad Congolese state, Chinese ETNs and child labor exploitation. The second part of this research will focus on the analysis of the duties and guidelines attached to the main legal and normative instruments that can be mobilized, in matters of Corporate Social Responsibility. Finally, the social accountability strategies of Chinese TNCs tested in this research will be presented. The basic theory that will guide this work is Amartya Sen's theory of achievement-focused justice. In the first part of this research, the dialectical approach method will be used, while in the second part, the comparative and hypothetical-deductive methods will be used. The procedure that will be adopted is the bibliographical research in primary and secondary sources, combined with the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data.