Bloody chips

Electronics makers are pressed to stop using 'conflict minerals' from mines controlled by armed groups in DR Congo. Workers bag tin ore, which can end up in common electronic products like cellphones and laptops, at Bisie mine in DR Congo's North Kivu province.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- First there were "blood diamonds," the gems that fueled conflict and human rights abuses in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Then there was "conflict cocoa," the chocolate source that's harvested by children and funds civil war in Ivory Coast. Now concern is rising about the minerals that go into common consumer electronics. Could that be a BloodBerry or a Conflict Cell in your pocket?

A new pressure-group campaign and pending legislation in Congress aim to increase awareness of "conflict minerals" from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and push companies to rid their supply chains of them. In question are ores mined by violent armed groups in the country's eastern region that can turn up in nearly any electronic product - like smart phones, MP3 players, and laptop computers. Activists say that buying products that contain the minerals indirectly allows outlaw factions to continue a conflict characterized by its brutality, including the murder of civilians, violence against women and conscription of child soldiers.