Diamonds, rubies, and totally different gems have prolonged been prized for the marvel they convey to engagement rings and totally different great jewelry-but recently, an growing variety of people have flip into acutely aware of the ugly story behind a number of of the world’s most useful stones. Study on to be taught further regarding the points associated to invaluable gems, and what you’ll be able to do to help ethical jewelry, reducing gems’ worth to workers, communities, and the Earth.
Worker and Neighborhood Hazards
Gemstone mining shall be hazardous to the nicely being of workers and communities alike. Diamond miners usually work in cramped and unsafe conditions in tunnels, and dirt from the mines might trigger respiratory illnesses in workers and residents of shut by communities. Mining of colored gem stones, resembling rubies and emeralds, is normally achieved on a smaller scale than diamond mining, nevertheless nonetheless holds risks. Consistent with the Worldwide Labour Group (ILO), many small-scale miners are unable to spend cash on the devices and instruments that may forestall accidents. Because of mining contains transferring huge portions of earth, it might truly moreover alter native ecosystems and hurt watersheds. And, although plenty of the worldwide areas the place gems are mined have authorized tips setting a minimal age for workers in hazardous occupations, the ILO has moreover documented child labor in mines.
Child labor may be a problem throughout the chopping and sprucing a part of every diamond and colored gemstone manufacturing, quite a lot of which takes place Asia; consistent with the ILO, India alone polishes 70 % (by weight) of the worldwide diamonds yield. In her e e-book Glitter & Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Empire (The Disinformation Agency, 2003), Janine Roberts explains, “Child labor is illegal in India, nevertheless this regulation is approach ignored. Sharp youthful eyes are quite a bit prized by Indian diamond retailers.”
The human struggling linked to gem manufacturing wouldn’t end with those who mine and scale back the stones. In Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, earnings from diamond product sales have funded weapons purchases for armed opposition groups resembling Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Entrance, which perpetrate human rights abuses.
Battle Diamonds
The nonprofit human rights group Worldwide Witness first launched worldwide consideration to the issue of ‘battle diamonds’ fueling and prolonging violent conflicts in 1998. Along with Physicians for Human Rights and totally different groups, they raised shopper consciousness of diamonds’ hyperlink to battle and generally known as on diamond sellers to stop searching for stones from worldwide areas the place diamond product sales are used to fund armed conflicts. The United Nations Security Council formally acknowledged the place of battle diamonds in prolonging violent conflicts in some worldwide areas, after which urged the diamond commerce to develop a worldwide monitoring system that can affirm the origins of uncut stones and arrange a paper path of possession.
Michael Fleshman, writing throughout the UN journal Africa Restoration in 2001, credit score NGO campaigns with making the diamond commerce further receptive to the UN’s identify for a worldwide monitoring system than it in some other case would have been.
Members of the diamond commerce began meeting regarding the concern in 1999, and in 2002, the commerce launched the Kimberley Course of Certification Scheme. The Kimberley Course of, which entered into stress in January of 2003, requires worldwide areas exporting robust diamonds to ship them in tamper-proof containers along with certificates guaranteeing the packages’ origins and contents. Nations receiving the shipments ought to certify that they have not been tampered with. Solely worldwide areas that belong to the Kimberley Course of can legally commerce in robust diamonds.
Quite a few human rights groups have acknowledged the Kimberley Course of as a step within the acceptable path whereas criticizing its lack of neutral monitoring and verification. Groups resembling Worldwide Witness and Amnesty Worldwide proceed to press the diamond commerce in order so as to add auditing, verification, and oversight components to the Kimberley Course of. Completely different advocacy groups are drawing consideration to one of the best ways people, plenty of them indigenous groups who’ve lived on the equivalent land for a whole lot of years, can face eviction when gem deposits are discovered of their areas.
Ethical Jewelry is Altering the Gem Enterprise
Consistent with Brian Leber, president of Leber Jeweler Inc, “The diamond commerce tried to stonewall when the ‘battle diamond’ story first broke, nevertheless they responded as quickly as most of the people stress obtained sturdy adequate.” Now, Leber and Eric Braunwart, president of Columbia Gem Residence, Inc./Tri-Gem Designs, are working to get the colored gem commerce to affix the diamond commerce in transferring in the direction of truthful, sustainable practices and produce ethical jewelry.
Sooner than the US banned imports from Burma in 2003, Leber urged the colored gem commerce to stop searching for Burmese rubies, which have been funding the abusive navy junta in power there. Consistent with Expert Jeweler journal, essential retailer Tiffany & Co. will begin shopping for Burmese rubies as soon as extra, since rubies mined in Burma nevertheless scale back elsewhere are exempt from the import restrictions. Leber says his agency will proceed to refuse to advertise Burmese rubies, and may as a substitute help the Jewelers’ Burma Discount Mission, based mostly by Leber in 2004, which works with the Foundation for the People of Burma to provide direct medical, tutorial, and micro-business enchancment assist to the Burmese.
Braunwart, within the meantime, has developed a system that applies truthful commerce guidelines to the manufacturing of colored gem stones. Columbia Gem Residence’s intensive protocols embrace “environmental security, truthful labor practices on the chopping and jewelry factories, and a good chain of custody,” Braunwart explains. As an illustration, he describes Columbia’s relationship with the Chimwadzulu Mine in Malawi, the place unusual Nyala ruby is found: the company pays above-minimum wage and affords nicely being benefits to workers, and it has constructed a university for the workers’ children. Uncut stones go immediately from this mine to Columbia’s Chinese language language chopping manufacturing unit, the place workers are paid thrice the minimal wage and acquire benefits that embrace room and board, meals allowances, paid journey, and medical and incapacity insurance coverage protection.
“This isn’t merely good for the workers,” says Braunwart. “It’s good for enterprise, too, on account of pleased workers put further effort into bettering the usual of the product. Turnover is low, so workers flip into very expert and skilled. Due to this, the usual of our merchandise rivals any on the planet.” Gem retailers and jewelry purchasers pays further for high-quality merchandise, and it seems they’ll moreover seek out gems which could be further socially accountable than customary selections: Braunwart says that Columbia Gem Residence’s product sales have surged 20-30 % yearly since he launched his Truthful Commerce Gems Initiative in 2001.
A number of of Columbia’s gems are turned jewelry at its Tri-Gem Design subsidiary, whereas others are provided to jewelry retailers resembling Leber Jeweler Inc. and Sumiche Jewelry Co.. “Ideally, we might have the ability to deal immediately with the people who mined the stones, so we might be sure that they’ve been being produced beneath truthful conditions, nevertheless for a enterprise as small as ours, it merely just isn’t doable,” says Sumiche president Miché Onaclea. “I wish to get your hands on suppliers I can perception to hold out the oversight, like Columbia Gem Residence.”
Onaclea notes that purchasers have responded properly to her agency’s accountable gems. “Some people had been avoiding searching for gems on account of they’d realized regarding the conditions a number of of them have been produced beneath, in order that they’ve been glad after we started offering alternate choices.”
As the current president of the American Gem Commerce Affiliation (AGTA), Braunwart has happy the group’s board to ponder strategies to adapt AGTA’s code of conduct to include “best practices” for gem sourcing. “The commerce is slowly turning into further acutely aware of the issues around the place our gems come from,” he says-and notes that at February’s AGTA conference, three reveals have been on factors related to truthful commerce, making it “the joys of the current.”
What You Can Do To Assist Ethical Jewelry
You’ll help improve conditions for miners, cutters, and communities world vast:
- Search out accountable alternate choices: Buy ethical jewelry from firms which have taken steps to be sure that their gems have been produced responsibly. Inexperienced America’s Nationwide Inexperienced Pages™ lists a lot of such firms, along with some that get their merchandise immediately from truthful commerce cooperatives. Some moreover present jewelry made out of recycled or responsibly mined metals. (See “Gold Loses Some Glitter,” Precise Money Jan/Feb 2005, to check points spherical gold.) Or, get your jewelry secondhand.
- Ask questions: “Clients play the very important half,” says Braunwart. “Most firms won’t change their insurance coverage insurance policies on account of it’s the suitable issue to do; they’ll change as quickly as they see there’s a demand for further accountable merchandise.” Let jewelry retailers know that you just’re concerned about factors surrounding gemstone manufacturing and ask what they’re doing to deal with such points. Moreover ask the place stones obtained right here from and the way a lot documentation they have to trace them. The commerce affiliation Jewelers of America has developed a “Social, Ethical, and Environmental Assertion of Concepts” that its members can use to info their enterprise practices. In case your jewelry retailer is a member, you’ll ask whether or not or not it has adopted these guidelines. Moreover, Leber cautions buyers to not assume that synthetic gems are basically further responsible-these gems, like precise ones, may be scale back beneath unhealthy conditions by workers paid starvation wages. Ask the place and beneath what conditions synthetic gems have been scale back.
- Assist campaigns: Be taught further regarding the concern of battle diamonds and help human rights groups resembling Amnesty Worldwide and Worldwide Witness which could be pressuring the diamond commerce to make the Kimberley Course of an environment friendly gadget.
- Unfold the phrase to your loved ones and associates. Collectively, we’re capable of make the manufacturing of gem stones safer and further ethical for all involved.