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19th Century American Imperialism

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This colonization left the country very weak, dispossessed of its resources and with a perpetrating corruption and bad governance left by the colonialist system. The many civil wars faced after 1997 shows it (three civil wars occurred until now). This led the UN to launch the world’s biggest peacekeeping mission in 1999, the MONUC. But the population is today still living in very bad conditions: in fact, according to the International Rescue Committee, 45,000 people are dying each month because of hunger or disease, and the Congolese are regularly ranked as having the lowest GDP per capita in the world. The situation is also still very unstable today because of this weakness, especially in the Eastern part of the country where armed groups …show more content…
In fact, it is one of the 20 lowest ranked countries on the Corruption Perception Index, and, in April 2013, anti-corruption NGOs revealed that the authorities failed to count $88 million from the mining sector. The situation has improved since the Second Congo War and the 2003 Peace Accords, and some efforts have been made under the reign of Joseph Kabila (who succeeded to his father Laurent-Desire, assassinated in 2001). For instance, he established the Commission of Repression of Economic Crimes in 2001. But there is still a lot to do: government revenue and spending are not high enough to make the country go out of poverty and be secured and to build infrastructures; especially in some remote parts of the country; as the current situation …show more content…
As the DRC is highly dependent on international aid and imports, the country is forced to follow these policies in order to get money. But these policies have negative effects: the State has less power on the economy and it is thus way harder for it to control or punish the mining companies exploiting the children. It also has to be favorable towards Western companies. In such a Neoliberal order, it is those companies that have the power and their only incentive is to make as much profits as possible to stay competitive. They thus prefer to employ cheap and vulnerable children (although sometimes not directly: Western companies, such as Apple, are buying commodities to local mining companies exploiting the children). Their basic rights are constantly violated because of harsh working conditions, often “up to 12 hours a day” and facing “a myriad of emotional, behavioral and physical risks” which stands against the Convention on the Rights of the Child that stipulates their “right to survival, to develop to the fullest and to protection form harmful influences, abuse, and

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