“When I first went to the Congo, I realized that a hundred years after Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, nothing had changed. That enraged me.”
Marcus Bleasdale

Photographer Marcus Bleasdale has spent the past decade working to bring one issue to the world’s eyes: workers, including children, toiling in brutal conditions in mines overseen by militias in the eastern Congo.

In October 2013 National Geographic magazine published “The Price of Precious,” which featured Bleasdale’s powerful photos of the suffering of people caught in the middle of the violent, illegal grab for minerals like tantalum, tungsten, and gold. These resources are referred to as “conflict minerals” because of the ongoing strife that surrounds the mines.

“The response has been massive,” Bleasdale says. “I’ve been surprised by how many people were not aware of where the minerals in their cell phones and computers and other electronics came from.”

“I’ve also been amazed by the reaction to ’The Moment’ a page in the back of the magazine with a photograph of a child’s funeral at the St. Kizito orphanage in the Congo. As a result of that picture, tens of thousands of dollars in donations to the orphanage have come in, from donors ranging from a media company in L.A. to a law firm in Oslo where I recently spoke. Every cent donated has been spent by the orphanage for the children.”

Recently, companies like Intel and Motorola have pledged to ban the use of conflict minerals in their products.

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