Iron Chains of Injustice: Holding ArcelorMittal Accountable

ArcelorMittal Liberia has staged a masterclass in corporate deflection. Their recent Environmental , Social, and Governance  (ESG) Council review meeting was not a step toward accountability—it was a performance crafted for optics. The question isn’t whether ESG standards are being met, but whether meaningful standards even exist in Liberia. When a company facing lawsuits, survivor-led petitions, and documented human rights abuses hosts its own review, the public must ask: who is this for, and what is being reviewed? The composition of ArcelorMittal’s ESG Council reveals the flaw at its core. Staffed primarily by internal employees, the council functions as a mechanism of self-certification. This is not oversight—it’s a closed loop of corporate affirmation. It’s grading your own exam and calling it transparency. Without independent voices, survivor testimony, or third-party audits, the council becomes an echo chamber that protects reputation rather than people. ESG must be more tha...

 By Ann-Dora Gbormie, Founder, CorporateWatch Liberia ArcelorMittal built its empire on steel—but its foundation is cracking under the weight of truth. For years, it operated behind closed doors, hiding labor abuses, environmental destruction, and human suffering. But the silence is broken. From Liberia to France, Mexico to the global financial markets, the company is facing a reckoning it can no longer outrun. This is not a PR crisis. It is a collapse of credibility. And it is being driven by survivors, communities, and advocates who refuse to be erased. This erosion is now bleeding into the financial markets. Despite reporting $1.9 billion in EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) for Q2 2025, ArcelorMittal’s stock dipped 4.65% in pre-market trading. Investors are no longer swayed by one-time gains or strategic acquisitions. They are watching the company’s ballooning debt—now at $8.3 billion—and its negative free cash flow of $800 million. Reput...

                                    By Ann-Dora Gbormie, Founder of Corporate Watch Liberia It’s time to rewrite corporate governance—not with polite revisions, but with the force of survivor truth and systemic indictment. ArcelorMittal is not just a steel company. It is the benchmark of corporate harm. From the coal mines of Kazakhstan, where 46 miners were buried alive, to the toxic dust of Fos-sur-Mer in France, where cancer rates soar, to the silenced victims in Liberia whose suffering is buried beneath boardroom denial—ArcelorMittal’s legacy is global, deliberate, and devastating. Its footprint spans continents and crises: retaliation and medical neglect in Liberia; the worst industrial accident in post-Soviet history in Kazakhstan; environmental degradation and labor exploitation in South Africa and Brazil; and whistleblower reports of forgery, bribery, and toxic emissions in France. These ar...

In Liberia, names carry weight. They reflect truth, pain, and memory. So, when communities across Grand Bassa and Nimba counties began calling ArcelorMittal “KillerMittal,” it wasn’t a slogan—it is a verdict. A name born not from rumor, but from grief. From lived experience. From the unbearable silence that follows preventable death. This name echoes through the corridors of mourning—from the tragic death of Trokon G. Sayweh, struck by an ArcelorMittal train near Kilometer 16, to the loss of Macdonald P.S. Dolo and Justin Mars, rail workers killed in a collision that should never have happened. It reverberates through the homes of hundreds of victims, whose lives were cut short or shattered by a company that treats safety as an afterthought and accountability as optional. Each year, more than 20 people are killed in train-related accidents tied to ArcelorMittal’s operations. These deaths are not statistical noise. They are fathers, mothers, children, workers—lives extinguished by a cor...