00:00and india is the world leader in diamond cutting and polishing but the two places with the greatest
00:05abundance of diamonds are the democratic republic of the congo and russia let's talk about the
00:11congo first the drc produces 25 of the world's diamonds but they're not actually mined there
00:18that's at least not officially the drc has a long history of civil war and corruption
00:24and many of their minds are what's known as artisanal these are small-scale operations with
00:29no oversight this means that anyone can go and start digging for diamonds without any kind of
00:34permit or regulation and many people depend on these artisanal mines for income but this makes
00:40tracking the source of diamonds extremely difficult artisanal mines produce about 20 percent of the
00:46world's diamonds and unfortunately they often use slave labor child labor or even indentured servitude
00:54in addition these mines cause environmental damage since no permits are required and safety regulations aren't enforced miners often dig huge holes and leave them open sometimes these holes fill up with water and become deadly traps for children who come to play in them
01:10miners may also use dangerous chemicals in the process of extracting the gems and rarely if ever do they properly sort through the soil and rock after mining so countless tons of waste material are produced for every carrot of diamonds mined this all contributes to diamonds having such a high price tag
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