This Valentines Day Tell Wal-Mart to Have a Heart

Valentine’s Day is meant to be a celebration of love, but for those producing the gifts we give on Valentine’s Day, the holiday has a whole different meaning. Human rights and environmental problems have long surrounded gold production. Wal-Mart, along with many other retailers, has pledged to only buy gold produced responsibly. SoJourners is now asking Wal-Mart to adopt the same standards for diamonds. Further discussion of the problems with dirty diamonds and how Wal-Mart can help correct the situation are below. Click here to sign the petition.

UPDATE: As of February 14, Sojourners reports more than 7,000 have signed this petition. Click here to become one of them.

With Valentine’s Day approaching, we’ve all seen the barrage of television ads enticing and imploring us to buy diamond jewelry for our loved ones. But did you know that the international diamond trade has supplied billions of dollars to rebel groups in Africa, fueling wars that have killed more than 4 million people?

This Valentine’s Day, tell Wal-Mart to make sure jewelry purchases aren’t destroying African lives.

The stories from these wars are harrowing.

Men, women, and children have been raped, tortured, maimed, and displaced by rebel groups who have been funded in part by the illegal sale of diamonds. Diamonds have also been used by al Qaeda and other terrorists to finance their activities and for money-laundering purposes, according to news reports.

As public outrage over conflict diamonds has grown, governments and industry leaders have taken some important steps to stem their trade. But the problem still isn’t solved: For example, diamonds mined in rebel-held areas of the Ivory Coast are still being smuggled into the legitimate global market despite a U.N. embargo in place since 2005.

And while the World Diamond Council has spent millions on a global public-relations campaign, many companies have failed to match their rhetoric with action - including Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest jewelry retailer, which has been particularly vague about its processes for ensuring that conflict diamonds are not sold in its stores.

If retailers and diamond companies are truly serious, they must implement comprehensive and independently verified processes to ensure that the diamonds they buy are conflict-free.

And as American consumers - who purchase half of all retail diamonds worldwide - we have an obligation to let the industry know we care about where they’re getting their diamonds.

Click here to send a message to Wal-Mart and the World Diamond Council, calling for meaningful action to end the trade in conflict diamonds.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Wednesday, February 13, 2008

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