Child labour in the diamond industry is a widely reported and criticized issue on diamond industry for using child labour in diamond mines and polishing procedures in poor conditions mainly in India and African countries. The largest producers of diamonds in Africa in terms of volume are Botswana, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with other countries producing significant amounts of diamonds as well.“Top 10 African Countries with the Highest Diamond Production Values.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 22 July 2024, africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/top-10-african-countries-with-the-highest-diamond-production-values/387gj5l. In these mines, children come into contact with minerals, oil and machinery exhaust. In many of these countries, the lack of mining and labour regulations is considered a result of early colonisation. In 1997, The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions claimed that child labour was prospering in the diamond industry in Western India, where the majority of the world's diamonds are cut and polished while workers are often paid only a fraction of 1% of the value of the stones they cut. 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, negative impact on health, and foreclose the option of school education for most of them.
There are organisations and people who try to create public awareness about the issue, including the Anti-Slavery Society, Survival International, IndianNGO, Child Labour News Service (CLNS) managed by the Global March Against Child Labour, and IHS Child Slave Labour News.
The United Nations declared 2021 as the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour.
History of the diamond industry in India and Africa
India According to historical records, diamonds were first discovered in India, with indirect evidence of diamond products dating back to around 100 C.E. Harlow, George E. The Nature of Diamonds. Cambridge University Press in Association with the American Museum of Natural History, 1998. The diamond trade was detailed in many writings by traders from the 13th to 17th centuries, including Marco Polo.Satyanarayana, S. V. “An insight into the Indian Diamond Exploration and Mining: Past and Present.” Journal of the Geological Society of India, vol. 98, no. 8, 1 Aug. 2022, pp. 1110–1113, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-022-2130-y. After this period, the English and Dutch East India Companies controlled a majority of the diamond and precious stone industry.Wada, Ikuko. "Diamond trade by the Dutch East India Company in seventeenth-century India." NAGAZUMI Yōko (ed.), Large and Broad: The Dutch Impact on Early Modern Asia Essays in Honour of Leonard Blussé (2010): 166-187. Colonial gem mining and processing groups turned the focus from mining to processing gems to make jewellery. Processing diamonds to make jewellery remains a major sector of the diamond and gem industry in India today.Jacobson, Tina. “Indian Jewellery Making and the Colonial Era.” Gems of Jaipur, 15 Feb. 2023, www.gemsofjaipur.net/blogs/news/indian-jewelry-making-and-the-colonial-era?srsltid=AfmBOoo19e0zuGHcymmwEzHllvfuQwwBItnRKrtI8NR-Gjhym0M-4CQv. After gaining independence in the mid-20th century, the Indian government implemented the National Diamond Project in the 1980s to evaluate the potential for diamond mining. The following decades included the implementation of the National Mineral Policy and subsequent amendments, which were aimed at growing the private mining sector.
Southern Africa The diamond industry in Africa began to boom in the late 19th century, specifically in Southern Africa when diamonds were first discovered here in 1867. A total of 8408 British companies registered for mining rights in this regionHiggs, Anneke. The historical development of the right to mine diamonds in South Africa. Diss. North-West University (South Africa), Potchefstroom Campus, 2017. in a period from 1880 to 1913. Diamond mining and the railroads that sprang up as a result led to rapid economic growth in the Cape, but this growth was confined to the mining sector and ultimately went back to the British Empire, rather than the local population. Other economic sectors were harmed, as colonial policies stripped farmers’ rights away from their land to access minerals below their farmland.
South Africa was the first country in this region to gain independence, which led to the birth of the Union of South Africa in 1910. In 1927, the Precious Stones Act was enacted to regulate the prospecting and mining of diamonds, as well as to determine who had rights to the diamonds. Despite gaining independence, Britain still retained the rights to some land in South Africa. This “Crown Land” allowed the Crown to maintain a majority share of the diamonds found on this land. This law remained until it was repealed in 1964 with the Precious Stones Act, enacted by the now Republic of South Africa. This new law did not reserve rights to precious minerals to the Crown; instead, the state maintained the mining rights and disposed of these minerals. Any private citizen who wished to mine had to obtain the proper licensing. The Precious Stones Act was repealed in 1991 with the newly enacted Minerals Act. The state was no longer entitled to a share in newly discovered diamonds in most cases, and prospecting and mining rights were determined by who owned said land. The Minerals Act lasted just over a decade until the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) came into effect in 2004. Still in effect today, its purpose is to separate land ownership from the rights to diamonds, given how Apartheid South Africa created land inequality between the white and black populations. A private citizen will need to obtain mining or prospecting rights to minerals regardless of land ownership.
The impacts of colonialism on the diamond industry persisted after the independence of South Africa in the form of the Apartheid government, which relied on cheap labour and revenue from the mining sector; the mining industry was largely supported by the De Beers company, which maintained influence all over Southern Africa. Even after the 1994 election, which marked the end of Apartheid, economic restructuring was slow. Most of the mines were owned by white South Africans, while the labourers were mostly black.Benson, Steven. “From Legacy to Liberation in South Africa.” World Diamond Council, 26 Nov. 2024, www.worlddiamondcouncil.org/from-legacy-to-liberation/.
Western Africa Unlike southern Africa, diamonds were discovered in the western area of Africa much later, in the early 20th century.Gberie, Lansana. "West Africa: Rocks in a Hard Place." Partnership Africa Canada, May (2003) However, extraction at a large scale did not begin until after WWII. In the few decades after, the industry was well maintained and organised in countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire. However, subsequent decades saw a sharp decrease in production as mineral reserves began to run dry, and political instability in the region led to more criminal trading. For example, Sierra Leone, which at its peak was exporting 2 million carats per year, saw that number fall to just 50 thousand in under a decade due to foreign mafia influence and corrupt leaders like Siaka Stevens. Armed conflicts between Liberia and Sierra Leone in the early 21st century also allowed for illegal miners and traders to supply the black market with diamonds. Armed conflicts keep these countries politically and economically unstable, and black-market diamonds do not contribute to the country's economy. These factors limit economic development and keep miners in poverty, forcing them to continue working in the mines.
Reports
India
In 1997, the International Labour Organisation published a report titled Child Labour in the Diamond Industry claiming that child labour is highly prevalent in the Indian diamond industry. Child labourers constitute nearly 3% of the total workforce, and the percentage of child labourers is as high as 25% in the diamond industry of Surat. The ICFTU further claimed that child labour was prospering in the diamond industry in western India, where the majority of the world's diamonds are cut and polished. Workers are often paid only a fraction of 1% of the value of the stones they cut.
Pravin Nanavati, a Surat-based diamond businessman argued that, since high cost diamonds could easily be lost or broken while cutting or polishing, employing a child labourer would mean risking "lakhs of rupees." Some western countries have called for a boycott against the diamond industry for establishing a monopoly in the sector. Mohan Dhabuwala, secretary of The South Gujarat Diamond Workers Association, argued that while child labour is highly prevalent in the construction and hotel industries, there are few child labourers in the diamond industry of Surat, less than 1% according to their surveys, mainly because of stern punishments and penalties for violation of child labour laws.
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.
In 2005, an India-based management consultancy firm, A. F. Ferguson & Co., commissioned a study titled Child Labour from the Gem and Jewellery Industry "to spread awareness about child labour among the people connected with the industry". 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. On 12 February, the study was presented at a seminar held by the GJEPC and the Surat Diamond Association, in Surat, India. The report argued that the use of child labour in India's diamond processing industry has been reduced from 0.55% in 1998 to 0.31% in 2005, "while for the synthetic stone industry it is estimated to be two-thirds less".
GJEPC chairman Bakul Mehta claimed that, "some 500 diamond factory owners took an oath in the city of Palanpur, Gujarat, (home town of leading Gujarati diamond merchants) not to employ children in their factories. Similarly, in Surat, 200 factory owners took the oath," and that GJEPC "remain committed to eradicating child labour from the Indian diamond industry". He argued that "...the gem and jewelry industry cannot even think of employing children, not only for moral reasons, but that a child could be injured while polishing or cutting the diamonds."
A 2009 study compared respiratory health issues in over 500 child laborers within the gem polishing industry in Jaipur, India to a similar number of children who had never worked. This study also considered sex, duration of work per day, work experience, and split each group into two age groups. The results showed that, with statistical significance, child laborers in this industry were at higher risk for tuberculosis, and hilar gland enlargement and calcification due to mycobacterial origin. These factors contribute to a higher mortality rate compared to the control group of children who had never worked.