Blood diamonds are being used to fund wars in Africa. A blood diamond is "a diamond mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent, invading army's war efforts or for warlord-like activity," according to Wikipedia. Blood diamonds have lead to the deaths of more than 4 million people and displaced many millions more by fueling wars across Africa. The United Nations highlighted that $23 million in blood dimaonds, or conflict diamonds, from the Ivory Coast are being smuggled into diamond markets around the world, and diamonds continue to cause instability and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Government controls in the US and in other countries are not strong enough or enforced effectively enough to stop rebel groups from exploiting diamonds to fuel war. Also, the diamond industry has not taken sufficient steps to fight the trade in blood diamonds.
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/site/c.goJTI0OvElH/b.2270757/k.CA70/Put_a_Stop_to_Blood_Diamonds.htm
1 comment:
Who would know that buying a diamond would kill someone?
Who would know that buying one can of beans instead of another means that people have to stand in the field working while a plane flies over and sprays DDT?
Who knew that most chocolate is produced by slave labor?
When anyone purchases a product, he or she purchases the entire chain of events that produces that product, and essentially pays the company to repeat those events. This is true particularly because CEO's must legally run corporations according to what maximizes profits, not by what their individual ideals might be.
Often, the people best positioned to determine the actions of corporations are the consumers, who choose which products and actions they approve by their purchases.
But the consumers generally have no idea of the history of the company or product. And who can research each can of beans? Who wants to?
We badly need organizations or Websites to gather and display information about business practices and products so that we can boycott products by companies that do things we don't agree with, like kill people, enslave people, or pay subhuman wages for inhumane working conditions.
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