#35: A Woman's Best Friend or an Outlet for Torture?

If you haven't seen the Leonardo Dicaprio movie Blood Diamond, I highly recommend you do. It's really good, and it is very informative about what goes on some places in Africa, and I'm sure, all over the world. While the country in the movie, Sierra Leone, is at peace now, the crisis I'm about to describe and is the story line for the movie is still a problem in various places in Africa.

Before buying diamonds, you should definitely do your research and find out where those diamonds came from, or you might find yourself unknowingly buying conflict diamonds. What are conflict diamonds? In various places in Africa, reporters and law enforcement officers have found rebel groups who force people into digging up and cleaning diamonds for the sole purpose of being smuggled and sold to people like us, who buy them for our wives to sport on their fingers. These people are not paid; they are slaves. They work in very poor conditions, are separated from their families, are turned into violent rebels who carry machine guns and kill whoever crosses their paths, etc. There have been wars and genocides involved with conflict diamonds. There have been child soldiers, who have been brainwashed and given machine guns to use on other people, including their own families. This is an insane, serious business...Something that people die over and are tortured over.

There's all kind of research you can do over this topic, but honestly, just watch "Blood Diamond." It will answer all of your questions and open your eyes. It doesn't hold back, trust me. It's intense and very explicit and truthful.

After watching the movie, do your research on the diamond you want to buy before you buy it! Make sure there was never a conflict involved with it. Honestly, the best way to avoid the situation is to forego diamonds. Just don't buy them. They're too expensive anyway. I'm sure you can find something else that's just as special and beautiful (and hopefully a lot cheaper) to use as a symbol of your undying love and devotion to your partner. Trust me, you don't want the symbol of your love for you partner to be a diamond that was involved with thousands of deaths, tortured souls, enslaved innocents, child soldiers, and wars/genocides. That's not a very meaningful symbol of love, if you ask me. Quite the opposite.

It's so sad that when I googled images of "conflict diamonds," this picture, along with others just like it, came up.

A sarcastic graphic design I made against forcing children to be soldiers in Africa.

The gruesome truth: What you're wearing around your neck may have tortured another woman who is just like you. The picture says "What is the price for these diamonds?" in French.

The movie I was referring to above.