Do Diamonds Symbolize Love Or Oppression?

Do Diamonds Symbolize Love or Oppression?

Diamonds are important in the Jewelry Industry but life is also important. Diamonds in the countries economy is important but life is important too. A diamond so fine and strong that it symbolizes strength of a relationship as it is the hardest mineral that only another diamond can cut it. Men propose with it and women drool over it. Diamonds also symbolize love, but is it really love or oppression. Its beauty and value can be deceiving. Many of the world’s diamonds are mined using practices that exploit workers, children and communities. A million diamond diggers in Africa earn less than a dollar a day. Miners are dying in accidents, child labor is widespread, and corrupt leaders deprive diamond mining
Many diamond-rich countries are extremely poor and people are not benefiting from the wealth in their soil. Diamond fields are rife with chaos and instability, and rebel groups and terrorists can still take advantage and access diamonds. Even within developing countries, Diamond mining communities are often the most impoverished. Many miners work independently and most of them are unlicensed and lack access to global markets limiting their bargaining power, because of that they have no choice but to sell their diamonds to middle-men at low prices. What’s alarming is that child labor is rampant because they are considered as an easy source of cheap labor. One survey of diamond miners in the Lunda Norte Province of Angola found that 46% of miners are between the ages of 5 and 16. Instead of going to school they are trapped in the mines, enduring the hardship of labor other than enjoying their childhood. They enter narrow mineshafts or descend into pits when they should be running around. They are robbed of a brighter future which should be a hope for them. As they become adults they don’t have a choice but to continue as a miner because they are illiterate. I
Well this diamonds funded brutal wars in Angola, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone, resulting in the displacement and death of millions of people. There is a reason they are dubbed as “Blood Diamonds”. The volume of conflict diamonds has been estimated at between 4% and 15% of the world trade of rough diamonds. Rebels use it as a fund to exchange with weapons that they use to fight the government. Lots of civilians and innocent people are caught in these conflicts. Rebels even attack some communities and force the people to join them to enslave them. Rebels from the Revolutionary United Front chopped off the hands and feet of women, children and men in order to frighten civilians away from the alluvial diamond fields. The government has been taking actions regarding this issue, and it is called Kimberly Process which is a joint effort between the diamond industry, governments and civil society that aims to end the trade in conflict diamonds through the development of the International Certification Scheme for Rough Diamonds which prevents Blood Diamonds in entering the market. Kimberly Process serves as a good model for combatting natural resources based conflict. Conflict Diamonds have been reduced but maybe in the future there is a chance that it may happen again. I think that the Kimberly Process has a flaw, come to think of it, it only focuses in banning