The protracted war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) amounts to one of the bloodiest conflicts since World War II. More than 5 million lives have been lost since the war began in 1998. Civilians — especially women and children — are targeted as tools of war. Eastern DRC, where much of the fighting takes place, has one of world’s highest rates of gender-based violence and child soldier use...Forced labor, often by children, is endemic to mining zones controlled by armed groups, where miners work under slave-like conditions...The average American unwittingly owns several devices containing these war-funding minerals. Many carry some around everywhere they go.