What are conflict diamonds?
A conflict diamond (also called a blood diamond or a war diamond) is a diamond mined in a war zone and sold, usually clandestinely, in order to finance an insurgent or invading army’s war efforts. ZS Diamonds does NOT have any of these diamonds listed on this website. For more information please click here.
Conflict diamonds are rough, uncut diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance armed conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments. In 1998, the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) – Global Witness brought to the worlds attention the fact that rebel groups were funding their war against the legitimate government in this way. The De Beers Group has been working with governments through the United Nations and other international organizations to ensure that future conflicts cannot be funded in this way, and the De Beers Group was instrumental in creating the World Diamond Council to represent the international diamond and jewelry industry in the Kimberley Process. See our page on Social Responsibility to learn more.
A blood diamond (also called a conflict diamond, converted diamond, hot diamond, or war diamond) is a diamond mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, invading army’s war efforts, or a warlord’s activity. These terms are particularly used in the context of diamond trading to indicate the negative effects for this sale.
Conflict diamonds – otherwise known as ‘blood diamonds’ are diamonds which have been mined in areas of conflict, predominantly in African nations, and the funds generated from mining diamonds have been used to fund such conflicts. A tiny percentage of the worlds diamonds are conflict diamonds but the diamond industry’s stance is that even one conflict diamond traded is one too many. The Kimberley Process, which has been in operation since 2003, is the diamond industry’s self regulation which aims to combat this problem. DeJoria strives to assure that we only sell non-conflict diamonds and urges all jewelers to adopt this stance.
