Diamonds, considered one of the worlds most beautiful gems, are prize and hold much value to people in the world. Everyone wants one, they hold essential values of love and prosperity when given to people. In some countries its a curse. It takes hard work to get them, painful work. In countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and many more. In these countries citizens are put to hard labor that tests their physical ability to work long, exhausting hours. Mining these diamonds in these countries is traumatic for the countries because it funds the wars that are happening and provides money for the warlords causing the wars. Forcing people to work for them and then have high costs on the diamonds, creating a large profit for the rebels. The diamonds are mined around the area he rebels have held, so if anyone tries to fight, they will get shot. To keep all of the workers with them they threat an them in very harsh ways. as Pervanina P. Brown from World Press writes, "To intimidate potential voters and to maintain control of the diamond mines, the rebels chopped off the hands and feet of adults, teens, children and even infants",Creating a scare factor for the workers. A significant amount of diamonds in our possession are blood diamonds, we don't realize how hard it was for people to get them. TIME Magazine says that,"65% of diamonds in the world are mined by warlords, giving the warlords and intake of $81.4 billion dollars for the war", other countries are trying to sift out what diamonds are conflict diamonds and ones that are not. They try to not fund the wars as much as possible, but it is very hard to find which is which. These countries are highly threatened by the rebels and the mines they are forced into. The live these people are living because of the high demand for diamonds it treacherous. Next time anyone thinks of the beautiful diamond they have, think of who lived through the harsh conditions to get the beautiful diamond for them.
Sources:
TIME magazine- http://time.com/blood-diamonds/
World Press - http://www.worldpress.org/article.cfm/Blood-Diamonds
Diamonds are around the world. I agree that diamonds is beautiful and when it sparked your eyes twinkle too. It takes hard work to get them, painful work. Imagine all these people who work hard just to get the diamonds. What if the storm come and they were working so hard just to find all these diamonds, they can be in danger just doing this but they will do everything to get all the diamonds they could find so they could have money. They would do the hard work just to give money for their family and they have to do it to survive to helped themselves.
ReplyDeleteDiamonds are around the world. I agree that diamonds is beautiful and when it sparked your eyes twinkle too. It takes hard work to get them, painful work. Imagine all these people who work hard just to get the diamonds. What if the storm come and they were working so hard just to find all these diamonds, they can be in danger just doing this but they will do everything to get all the diamonds they could find so they could have money. They would do the hard work just to give money for their family and they have to do it to survive to helped themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis problem of impoverished people forced into labor to fulfill the demands of luxury goods in other "first world" countries reminds me a lot of the sweat shops some designers use. People in poor living conditions are forced into working so people in other countries can have their fancy things, not realizing the hard labor that often goes into making them. It is a sad reality that we often over look (or make ourselves not think about), but it is important to acknowledge these things and try to avoid buying things from these types of companies, in hopes that the working conditions will eventually improve for the workers. We have so many labor laws and expectations here in America, and it isn't fair that other countries don't have the same rights that we expect to have no questions asked, yet we don't have any problems buying things made by people who will never have the luxury of basic human rights or acceptable working conditions.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting and informative blog! Diamonds are a very beautiful gem, but people should not be forced to risk their lives mining for them. It is very sad that people are so crazy for diamonds that they feel the need to cut off the hands of not only adults and children, but also infants.
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