Child labour in the diamond industry
[2] It is argued that economic growth in Western India in the 1980s–90s was associated with an increase in the number of child workers who do simple, repetitive manual tasks that do not require long years of training or experience in low-paying hazardous working conditions that involve drudgery, and foreclose the option of school education for most of them.
[6] In 1998, Madhura Swaminathan from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research argued that economic growth in western India had been associated with an increase in the number of child workers over the previous 15 years and that children worked at simple repetitive manual tasks in low-paying hazardous jobs, foreclosing the option of school education.
They studied 663 manufacturing units at 21 different locations in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, as an initiative of the Gem & Jewelry Export Promotion Council.
"[7][8][9] On 28 August 2003, BBC News reported that during the 10-year civil war in Sierra Leone children were used as combatants and child labourers in the diamond mines of Koidu in the north-eastern district of Kono.
Children aged between 5 and 16 were used in hard labour, for ten hours a day, "digging in soil and gravel, before sifting with a pan for gemstones and shifting heavy mud believed to contain diamonds."
Human Rights Abuses in the Marange Diamond Fields of Zimbabwe,[11] based on its researchers' "more than 100 one-on-one interviews with witnesses, local miners, police officers, soldiers, local community leaders, victims and relatives, medical staff, human rights lawyers, and activists in Harare, Mutare, and Marange district in eastern Zimbabwe", conducted in February 2009.
Some income from the fields has been funnelled to high-level party members of ZANU-PF, which is now part of a power-sharing government that urgently needs revenue as the country faces a dire economic crisis."
"[1] CSLN further argued the diamond mines are dangerous work sites, "open pits of heavy minerals, oil, machinery exhaust, and any other rubbish seeps into".
[1] In Botswana, a long dispute has existed between the interests of the mining company, De Beers, and the relocation of the Bushman tribe from the land to explore diamond resources.
[19] Several international supermodels, including Iman, Lily Cole and Erin O'Connor, who were previously involved with advertising for the companies' diamonds, have backed down after realizing the consequences raised by this scandal, and now support the campaign.
[23] The song is revealing the hard life of child workers in Sierra Leone, like other West African nations who since 1991 having been forced to mine conflict diamonds and die in civil wars financed by them: "Good Morning!
[24] The music video was directed by Hype Williams and shot entirely in black-and-white in Prague,[25] featuring visuals of young African children toiling away in mines under the careful watch of their wardens with juxtaposed with scenes of wealthy Westerners shopping in boutiques and trying on jewellery.
