Blood Diamonds
Blood Diamonds or Conflict Diamonds are a major source of discussion both within the jewelry industry and about the jewelry industry. I have always been disgusted by what goes on in some African countries that gives some diamonds the mark of being blood diamonds so I try to educate myself on how to avoid diamonds coming out of those countries.
Diamonds that are designated as conflict diamonds come out of countries where people are killed and maimed over diamonds. In general, this has occurred because of wars going on in these particular countries. Because diamonds are worth so much, the fighting parties use them to fund the wars and are willing to go to any lengths to get those diamonds. In general, these wars in Agola, Liberia, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and other countries occurred before the year 2000. There is no question that what was going on was wrong in every way. The good news is that not all of those wars are going on anymore and there are now regulations in place to try to keep diamonds from countries that are still at war, out of the world diamond trade.
When the atrocities occurring in Africa came to the attention of the rest of the world, the United Nation Security Council got involved and banned some countries from exporting diamonds at all and encouraged the development of a way to track where diamonds come from. The World Diamond Council was created in 2000 and two years later they developed the Kimberly Process.
Countries who wish to export diamonds have to be a member of the Kimberly Process which is a system designed to track diamonds coming out of Africa and ensure that they have not been used to fund wars. This tracking system ideally will track each diamond from participating countries from the mine all the way to the retail counter. Using this process, the consumer should be able to see their diamond’s papers telling them where it came from.
Of course this system is not perfect. There are still countries that the UN has banned from exporting diamonds and no one knows how many of these sneak into the stream of legally exported diamonds. It is a problem that is still being looked at.
If these regulations do not ease your mind, there are other options for buying diamonds. There are several mines in Canada that are currently producing diamonds. These mines are heavily regulated by the Canadian government and each stone is inscribed with a serial number to track it. Canadian diamonds are more expensive than African diamonds though, so be prepared to spend a little more if you want a certified Canadian diamond.
Russia also has diamond mines. Russia has stricter policies about exporting though so you may have trouble finding a diamond from Russia.
If you like colored diamonds, there are now lab-created diamonds on the market. They are graded the same way as natural diamonds but are grown in a lab rather than in the ground. The down side is that there are no white lab-diamonds on the market.
The industry as well as the United Nations is trying very hard to stop conflict diamonds from getting onto the market at all and their efforts go a long way to ease my conscience. I don’t know that completely boycotting African diamonds is the way to go either way. There are countries in Africa that rely heavily on the revenue from their mines and they are not committing any crimes. I think diamonds are a very personal purchase and whether or not you would prefer to buy a stone that is certified from Canada rather than Africa is just another choice to be made when choosing the right stone for you.
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