Posted 9:50 am Friday, February 11, 2011
Diamonds & Chocolate: Merchants Say You Can Trust Their Products
By CASEY MURPHY
Business Editor
Local chocolate and diamond dealers say they buy their wares from only trusted vendors in an attempt to ensure the products are not the fruits of illegal labor.
Business Editor
Local chocolate and diamond dealers say they buy their wares from only trusted vendors in an attempt to ensure the products are not the fruits of illegal labor.
Reports began surfacing more than 10 years ago of children being trafficked to work in cocoa farms and "blood diamonds" being illegally traded to fund conflict in war-torn areas, particularly in central and western Africa.
But local businesspeople selling diamonds and chocolates say great measures now are taken by the industries to keep illegal products out of stores.
"We're very comfortable with the vendors we get our chocolate from," Pam Gabriel, owner of Sweet Gourmet, said. "The companies we deal with are reputable companies. I don't doubt them for one minute.
"The same way that I don't doubt when I go to purchase anything that I might purchase at a grocery store or at the mall. I feel like the homework has been done, and if they're not a reputable company, they're not going to be in business."
Ms. Gabriel has owned Sweet Gourmet, 4554 S. Broadway Ave., for five years. The store offers the "more gourmet-type chocolates" from all over the world, including the United States, Belgium, France, Ecuador and South America.
On average, chocolate makes up about 30 percent of Ms. Gabriel's store offerings but goes up to 50 percent this time of year, she said. She began seeing business pick up for Valentine's Day a week ago.
ABOVE, specialty chocolates from Sweet Gourmet in Tyler sport a Valentine’s Day theme. Local sellers say they do what they can to ensure their products are coming from reputable sources. --Staff Photo By Rachel Anne Seymour
"Reports of children being trafficked to work on cocoa farms and stories of children working under abusive conditions began to emerge in 2000," according to a Congressional Research Service report prepared for Congress on July 13, 2005. "Following these reports, some began calling for boycotts and other punitive actions against the cocoa and chocolate industries."
In response, the industries -- in conjunction with international labor organizations, other nongovernmental organizations, U.S. government agencies and affected African governments -- developed a protocol for growing and processing cocoa beans and for prohibiting and eliminating child labor. The protocol, widely known as the Harkin-Engel Protocol after Sen. Tom Harkin and Rep. Eliot Engel, outlines steps the industry formally agreed to undertake to end abusive and forced child labor on cocoa farms by July 2005. The protocol is voluntary and nonlegislative, according to the report, titled "Child Labor in West African Cocoa Production: Issues and U.S. Policy."
Chocolate has been a symbol of romance for hundreds of years and is symbolic of Valentine's Day, Ms. Gabriel said. "It's just a token of love," she added.
DIAMONDS
Just as much a symbol of love as chocolate -- especially on Valentine's Day -- is the diamond.
"All of us in the jewelry business, we know what we do is frivolous and there's so many people that do more important things ..." LeaAnn Ramsey Fritz, owner of Ramsey Fritz Jewels, said. "We all feel blessed to be in a business of pretty things but also in a business that celebrates really special moments in peoples' lives."
Diamonds haven't always been just pretty things.
Conflict diamonds captured the world's attention during the brutal conflict in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.
"To prevent diamonds from areas of conflict entering into the legitimate diamond supply chain, diamonds are monitored at every point of the diamond pipeline, from mining through to retail," according to the World Diamond Council's website, http://diamondfacts.org. "These monitoring processes are called the Kimberley Process and System of Warranties."
The Kimberley Process is a United Nations-mandated system established in 2002. Today, more than 99 percent of all diamonds are certified through the Kimberley Process, the website reads.
"All diamonds we're selling go through the Kimberley Process," said Larry Stokes, who has worked for six years at Susan Robinson Jewelry, owned by his mother. "Everything has to be certified."
All the stones they sell are accompanied by a certificate -- something they take to heart when doing their buying, he said. They are always looking for good deals, but if they see something that looks too good to be true, it usually is, he added.
Stokes said there always are those fly-by-night salesmen out there, but they usually are quickly discovered and the diamond industry tries to protect its name by making sure they're cut out of the market.
Stokes said there are problems in the diamond, chocolate and oil industries -- those things exist no matter what the resource. But the diamond industry is so small and regulated, people selling illegal diamonds are found out quickly and weeded out of the market, he said.
"I think everyone is doing their fair share to make it a better place, no doubt," he said.
His advice to diamond seekers is to make sure you're buying from someone established and reputable.
Ms. Fritz said, "The whole 'blood diamond' thing was not just scandalous, it was horrifying, but I think what the general public doesn't realize is, it was a war that happened and has ended."
The Kimberley Process started in cooperation with the United Nations and was a big effort. It was one of the few times an industry has joined up with diplomats to try and figure out a problem like this, she said.
"We (the diamond industry) cooperated with the U.N. and jointly with the cooperation of government have put in rules that follow the flow of rough (diamonds) and disrupt this illicit selling," Ms. Fritz said.
"How I'm careful is, I don't do business with strangers," Ms. Fritz said. "We make sure our manufacturers are applying the Kimberley Process rules in the diamonds that they buy."
Ms. Fritz is multi-levels removed from rough production, but she said that at each level, there has been a tremendous amount of scrutiny and disclosure so the process culls out bad players.
"So at every level of our industry -- from retailers to manufacturers to loose-diamond sellers to people cutting the rough -- there is a very careful flow of merchandise and it's documented," Ms. Fritz said.
"So you just be careful," she said about buying diamonds. "It's kind of like the 'don't talk to strangers' thing ... it works applied to so many things in life."
In her career, Ms. Fritz has had strange people walk into her store and try to sell her jewelry at really low prices. She knows that when it's not the going price, it is a bad actor and she should stay away from those things.
"At every level, it's not black and white, but common sense answers so many questions," she said. "If it doesn't seem as what it should be, it probably isn't what it should be."
Judy Cole, who co-owns Jim's Jewelers with her husband, said most of their vendors send in merchandise with a disclaimer that the diamonds are certified.
She said they have not had much of a discussion about "blood diamonds" with their customers because they deal with vendors they know.
"It's never been a problem with any of our vendors," she said.
To become members of the Retail Jewelers Organization or the Independent Jewelers Organization, both of which Jim's Jewelers deal with, vendors have to be screened and voted on by the organizations' boards of directors.
"That's one reason we haven't had much of a problem with it," she said. "A lot of these diamond vendors have been around forever, and even the newer ones go through the screening" process, she said.
When asked about the problems with "blood diamonds" in the industry, Shannon Murphey said, "That's old news."
Murphey, who owns Murphey the Jeweler at 4921 S. Broadway Ave., said all of his suppliers are required to have paperwork proving they did not purchase from those area that had "blood diamonds" or diamonds mined illegally.
"We have only dealt with suppliers we know and trust, and we have to trust that they aren't buying from bad sources," he said. "As long as we're buying from trusted sources, we're comfortable."
THE CONFLICT
The United Nations defines conflict diamonds, also known as "blood diamonds," as diamonds that "originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council," according to the World Diamond Council's website, http://diamondfacts.org.
During the conflict in Sierra Leone, conflict diamonds represented about 4 percent of the world's diamond production. Illicit rough diamonds also have been used by rebels to fund conflicts in Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo (also known as Congo Brazzaville), the website reads.
African diamond-producing countries where rebels once used diamonds to fund conflict but now are at peace and no longer see trading in conflict diamonds are: Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. The countries are participants of the Kimberley Process.
Although the flow of conflict diamonds has been reduced to less than 1 percent, there still is one African diamond-producing country -- Ivory Coast -- that is under U.N. Security Council Resolution to prohibit the extraction and trade in diamonds. This country produces a very low percentage of the world's diamond supply.
The movie "Blood Diamond" came out in 2006 and portrayed the war that took place in Sierra Leone in the early 1990s.
People have the perception that it still is the current situation in Sierra Leone. And although the situation there still is problematic, the country is rebuilding itself on the back of the diamond industry, Ms. Fritz said.
"Any piece of jewelry in my store is the fruit of many different hands of labor, and so from an employment standpoint, you're benefiting a lot of people when you buy a piece of jewelry," Ms. Fritz said. "When someone calls for a boycott on products where that many hands touch and it's providing jobs ... if you boycott diamonds, you're hurting the very people who need our help and need stable government and need stable employment."
She said the diamond industry took a risk going into Africa and building billion-dollar deep mining operations for employment opportunities.
For many generations, diamonds were exported in their rough state right out of the mines. But one of the effective things the South African government has done, in cooperation with the diamond industry, is gone in and built cutting and faceting facilities. She said every step of production that happens in the country of origin is a profit center and an employment center for that country. There's been a concerted effort to create employment opportunities, Ms. Fritz added.
Most diamonds still being watched closely are coming from the Ivory Coast, which still is problematic. "There are 70 countries working together to not only keep a lid on the bad part but to provide employment opportunities that provide stability for those nations," she said.
"We're the bread basket, and they're the mineral basket of the world, really," she said. "I think that's the balance."
The jewelry industry worldwide employs such a diverse population and there is manufacturing from the mining stage to the finishing stage, she said.
