Glencore’s bad international practices
Amine Lakhdar
Texas A&M University - Commerce

Glencore’s bad international practices As the world is enduring a serious financial crisis, big businesses have been challenged as never before. Protesters have been demanding a fairer form of capitalism. People want more socially responsible companies and genuinely popular capitalism. The case discusses one of the world’s most powerful conglomerates in the world which is Glencore. As it was recently introduced in London Stock Exchange, Glencore was questioned about its international practices. It is a commodity giant specialized in raw materials. The multi-billion dollar commodity giant is accused of profiting from child labor in several mining exploitation in the Congo, moreover, claims say that it is paying the associates of paramilitary killers in Colombia. An investigation proves that children as young as ten are working in the Glencore-owned mining concession and some confidential documents show a Glencore subsidiary made payments to the suspected associates of paramilitary in Colombia.
In the Congo, while international law prohibits anyone under 18 working in a mine, many of the miners were under the legal age. Although Glencore says it stopped operating in the mine since 2008, because of the collapse in the price of copper, it still owns the concession. Glencore chief executive Ivan Glasenberg said the mine had been taken over by local workers without its permission. He said the child miners were part of a group of freelance miners who "raided our land in 2010… against all of our authorization. We are pleading with the government to remove the artisanal miners from our concession."
In Colombia, At least 10 people were murdered when paramilitaries seized a patch of land called El Prado next door to Glencore's Calenturitas coal mining concession in 2002. The