Social Practice~ Blood Diamonds

To our culture, diamonds usually tend to resemble love and/or money. In African countries, such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they are signs of torture and struggles. As diamonds came to be known, it began the bloodshed in Africa.
In 1991, Sierra Leone was part of an 11 year Civil War. It began as them fighting against their government but it ended in them fighting over who would be in control of their best resource, diamonds. The war was being paid for in diamonds. Millions of innocent victims were pulled into the middle of this. This is how they got the name, "blood diamonds".
Children, teens, and adults were taken from their homes and forced to work in search of the diamonds. The work consisted of sifting and digging through sand, mud, and clay to find these diamonds. They had to use the bathroom right where they stood working. If they refused to work, tried to escape or even look for food they were either shot or had their limbs amputated. One man watched his uncle be shot. When the family picked up the corpse, the trucks of soldiers came back and threatened that if they burried the body they would shoot and burn their whole town. They ran as fast as they could and the trucks continued the chase them. The man said that only God could save them from this terror.
Sierra Leone should be one of the wealthiest countries; instead it is one of the most poverty stricken. If one of the slaves finds a diamond they were given 50 cents a day. If they didn't find any, they didn't have enough money to get themselves food. Though the war was over, still in 2008, they exported about 150 million dollars worth of diamonds.
As I watched videos of this practice, one story remains in my mind. A mother is taken from her home and she is pleading to God that she needs to be with her family. Her husband lost his job and she was the only one capable of providing for them. As her and her children are crying, the soldiers cut off her hands. This woman's children beg her to go to the hospital. They literally have to push her out of their home and to the hospital. The whole time she is telling her children to just leave her, she would be better off dead...
Fortunately, in Sierra Leone many refugees have been allowed to go back to their villages and child labor is banned from the mines. This doesn't mean that this is over. In other countries it is still common.
We as Americans purchase diamonds frequently for things such as engagement rings, jewelry, belts, mirrors, cars, etc. Before purchasing these fine gems, we can ask the place we're buying them from, where they were exported from. Some places have fake certificates of the diamonds, so you must be careful when purchasing your diamonds. Refusing to buy from these places selling conflict/blood diamonds is one powerful way to put an end to this violence.