People say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. A friend that makes you happy and proud to have- but can you really trust them? What if you little “friend” on your dainty little finger not only cost a ridiculous amount of money but also cost the lives of innocent people? That would really make you reconsider buying a diamond and make you reconsider whom you trust. See, you really have to be careful where your sparkly, little gem comes from. Do you have any idea what it took just to make it to North America? Well, chances are 1000’s of children were killed or captured, people were torn away from their families and over 2.2 billion dollars were used just to smuggle those diamonds into developed countries. Honestly, is it really worth it?
Roughly around 4.5 million innocent people have died from being a part of the blood diamond industry and the RUF is to blame. The Revolutionary United Front has invaded countries, amputated citizens’ limbs, forcefully made people mine for diamonds and captured young children and trained them to be child soldiers. What if one of the humans you spawned was indeed captured by this gruesome and violent group of people? He or she would either be trained to become a vicious beast on a battlefield or used for sexual favours, rape and molestation. Pure greed is the cause of all this. It amazes me the things people will do just to have money. Speaking of money, you would think that the people that mine these conflict diamonds would at least get fair pay, right? Well, it’s unfortunate to tell you that, that is not the case. On average, a daily pay for a conflict diamond worker is $0.07 according to the World Bank, United Nations and the Kimberly Process. Also, 83% of stores, when asked, if the customers inquire about blood diamonds responded rarely or not at all. It really gets you wondering who’s really getting the money.
The majority of diamonds that are bought and sold are from conflicted