African Diamond Ethics

Diamonds are one of the top exports of many African countries. Yet people there are among the poorest. Not only are children forced into child labor, many are killed in accidents or in fighting over diamonds. Despite these cruel scenes present through out the African nations, the diamonds business is booming with major countries, including U.S. among the top buyers of these diamonds.

In many of the African countries, the earth is pockmarked with holes up to 100ft in the areas where diamonds are readily found. The smaller the person, the better they can maneuver once they've been lowered down the rope. Many children are lowered into these deep dark holes for long stretch of hours in a day, where the daylight above is just a pin prick..

The children occasionally find diamonds worth thousands of dollars but are not allowed to keep them. They have no protection except from the people exploiting them. Their lives are at risk. Most are here because they were abandoned by their families. Through out Africa, there are small villages where adults and children gather at what looks like a little market, but here the trade is in diamonds. In each stall a dealer sits with a set of scales and a pile of US dollars. The clients are mostly barefoot children. One of them stands before a dealer with his mouth open wide showing little diamonds on his tongue. If he's lucky he'll get a few dollars, but it's more likely the boy is cheated or ends up dead at the bottom of an abandoned diamond pit.

From this market the dealers take the diamonds into town and sell them to bigger dealers who say they never buy diamonds from children under the age of 15. These dealers take their diamonds to Europe, Asia and Middle East and sell them to bigger merchants, who know even less about how their stones were brought out of the ground. There is a worldwide system to verify diamonds. But this is designed to stop rebel armies from buying guns with diamonds - not to verify anybody's age. Until the problem is addressed, children in Africa will continue their dangerous work and many will continue to die.

In the meantime, what should the ethical consumer do, amidst the barrage of misinformation claiming there is really nothing wrong with the existing jewellery industry? Firstly, they should not be embarrassed to ask difficult question: Where does this diamond come from? But what is “good” and “bad” in the context of Africa? Can we apply Western standards to Africa? Consider something simple like child labor. If the life expectancy of a Sierra Leone male is 38, how old is a 15-year-old in Sierra Leone years? If there is no school and no food, what is a 15-year-old to do? Starve and let his family starve or work?