Diamonds are Forever

Last night, Suzy and I watched "Blood Diamond" with Leo. It was a great movie. It was based on the civil wars in Africa that are funded by the diamond industry. Groups are mining diamonds by using slaves. They are using the profit to buy guns to have wars against their governments. The movie was a story about this and how the UN made a resolution not to purchase any "Conflict Diamonds."

This made me very sad and, although I knew about this stuff and remember seeing it on the news, it never hit me as hard as it did when I saw the movie about how devestating this really is. So, today I've been reading up on some of these things and found a pretty cool site: realdiamondfacts.org.


Here are some facts that they put out about the diamonds in Africa:

Fact 1. In the past 15 years, an estimated 500,000 Angolans, 50,000 people in Sierra Leone,and nearly 4 million people in the DRC have died from civil wars funded through the sale of conflict diamonds.

Fact 2. A recent study found 46% of miners in Angola are under the age of 16, with many of thechildren exploited for little or no pay because of war, poverty, and the absence of education.

Fact 3. 300,000 carats of diamonds annually are currently being mined with slave labor in therebel-held regions in Ivory Coast and sold to fund violent conflicts. These diamonds are being smuggled through neighboring countries to international markets.

Fact 4. Sierra Leone is ranked the world's poorest country by the United Nations HumanDevelopment Index, with poverty in diamond mining areas such as the Kono District particularly striking. The Kono District has produced billions of dollars worth of diamonds.

Fact 5. Although the Democratic Republic of Congo produces more than $2 Billion of diamonds annually, 90% of its population of 60 millino lives in abject poverty. The diamond capital, Mbjui Mayi, has no clean water, poor roads, and minimal electricity.

Fact 6. The vast majority of the 1.4 million artisanal diamond diggers across five African countries live in poverty, making less than one dollar a day.

Fact 7. The use of child labor for cutting and polishing is extremely common in India, where children suffer from dangerous conditions, overcrowding, and malnutrition. In many areas, one out of ten workers polishing a diamond is a child due to minimal government oversight.

Fact 8. FBI reports and a Washington Post Investigation have linked Al Qaeda money-laundering efforts to the rough diamond trade in Sierra Leone.

Fact 9. Ninety years of environmental neglect in Angoloan diamond mining have devestated large tracts of land, poisoned local water, and forced indigenous populations to relocate.

Fact 10. After diamonds were discovered, the San Bushmen were forcibly evicted from their ancestral land in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve's land they have lived on for thousands of years. The Bushmen have faced torture, severe and routine harassments, and the complete destruction of their water supplies.

This site also talks about what we can do to help, especially since the United States accounts for most of the diamond purchases in the world. I know Suzy is torn in two because she wants diamonds but she doesn't want to support that. I know that it's going to be easier for me to not have to buy diamonds anymore for her (not like I buy her many anyways). "Think of the children in Africa," I'll say.