The “Conflict Free” Diamond On Your Dirty Gold Ring Now Brought To You By Forced Child Labor
Editorial by Marc Choyt, Publisher, fairjewelry.org
Reading the US Department of Labor’s report of widespread child labor in the jewelry sector trade publications such as National Jeweler and Idex, is extremely disconcerting.
We learn about the widespread use of child labor in gemstone, diamond and gold mining. India, Philippines, Peru, Tanzania, Ecuador, Mali, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, DROC, Colombia, Nicaragua, Senegal, Indonesia, Guinea, Mongolia, North Korea, Bolivia, Nigeria, Colombia, DROC, Ecuador, Ghana, Mongolia, Niger, Peru and the Philippines all use children in their mines.
Yet the reports are presented in language that is oddly detached, even clinical. In these publications, we receive no sense of moral outrage. A world turned upside down. The greed and exploitation at the producer level that feeds the monstrous heart of darkness in the jewelry sector are merely statistics.
In fact, with the assault of tragic news from around the globe that hit us every day, this information is easy to gloss over. One can still maintain the illusion of one’s integrity as a jewelry producer or consumer without even hearing the beat of your own heart.
In the collective numbing you do not catch the fact that — YOUR JEWELRY — YOUR MONEY — MAYBE YOUR BUSINESS — is resulting — RIGHT NOW — in destroying the lives of children, their communities, their watersheds, trees and mountains– which are merely a commodity to be chewed up, turned in to cash and spit out as trash — just for the bling you’ve purchased…
We are indeed living in a remarkable time. Our culture and society has become so sick that beauty and adornment, the rite of marriage, once the most ennobling of human activities has now become like the growth of an ugly cancer, which has become the status quo.
The chewing up and spitting out of the lives of these children can be observed as if from some far away universe, so as not to disturb the brilliant reflection of clean jewelry store glass, or the jeweler’s espresso moment with his morning Wall Street Journal, where he contemplates the implications of the latest price of gold without considering the true price of gold.
Yes, this, unfortunately, is the current state of the jewelry sector, where the disconnect between actions and thoughts remains endemic but entirely consistent — a continuity decision that recently led to the death of four million African’s in a war funded by the diamond sector—a war for which not one person in the diamond sector was ever held accountable.
Palliative Leadership
In reading the reports from the US Department of Labor, we should be hearing moral outrage, and an immediate demand to stop purchasing all material from producers that cannot be traced to source. Instead, we have at best, the equivalent of palliative care.
This way of doing business is propped up.
Last month, in an interview with Michael Rae, CEO of the Responsible Jewelry Council, (RJC) we learned that, even though the members of the group, (who represent a “big boys club” in the jewelry sector) adhere to: “responsible ethical, human rights, social and environmental practices in a transparent and accountable manner throughout the industry from mine to retail.” Yet, there is no absolute assurance of traceability in their supply chain. As this publication has revealed, CEO of the RJC, Michael Rae stated that their audit process will not prevent dirty gold from Peru from entering their supply chain. The efforts of the RJC are not being supported by civil society.
Following these types of actions, it is hard not to believe that what we are witnessing is a step by step process by which many of those who are recognized business leaders in the jewelry sector, are attempting to create the appearance that their behavior is somehow different, when in fact, it is not. Small steps are taken as a kind of palliative care for a sickness that has lasted for over a hundred years, where spin and seduction have been raised to the levels that would make even George Orwell choke.
This report from the US Department of labor confirms that for all but the smallest segment of the jewelry sector and the educated public that ask for mine to market custody of what they purchase, nothing has changed.
A Call To Action
The type of deep disconnection that turns our very living into a destructive act, limiting our own future survival is not unique to the jewelry sector. It is merely an expression of the commoditization of everything in life, and how economy too often rewards those whose business practices rapidly destroy community and ecology.
But it is in jewelry where we can make a difference. We need to think about jewelry the way people in the slow food to table market think about their organically supported local community. We need to know that our commerce is not supporting the dominant resource curse model of economic activity. We need to know where everything comes from and how it impacts all communities.
We need to build a grass roots movement in which we demand products that can be traced from mine to market.
We also need to educate. Nothing is going change until the consumers wake up and begin to align their purchasing power with their core values. If just 5% of people walking into an average jewelry store would ask for mine to market custody, we would see a major shift, because it is all about money.
