Blood Diamonds

Diamond Mining in Sierra Leone 

Diamond mining by slaves has been alive for about 130 years now in Sierra Leone, Africa. In the1990s rebels in Sierra Leone and Liberia financed their carnage from diamonds plucked out of the rivers and traded for arms. During a decade of war about 50,000 people were killed, and thousands had their hands hacked off by rebels. All of these people were and are under forced labor. Forced labor is known as involuntary servitude but instead of being exploited by an act of one person holding charge, these people have been abused by the government or the RUF, Revolutionary United Front. The RUF kidnaps children and takes them to their diamond mines. These diamonds are preferably found by children because of their small hands. Most of these children start out as child soldiers and then moved to the mines to make profit for the Generals of the RUF. About a quarter of the miners in Sierra Leone are children and the rest are enslaved adults.The most popular RUF's punishment is the amputation of legs and arms by the use of Machete's. The diamond mining industry is mostly held by enslaved children and adults, they have been held captive and taken to Sierra Leone to give some profit to the foul Government in Africa. No more than fifteen percent of blood diamonds were controlled by rebels in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Are these diamonds really worth the lives and limbs of African enslaved people? The United Nations did not intervene in sierra Leone until June 2001, 10 years after the war began. although the United NAtions began to intervene in 2001 , actual actions were not taken until 2002 when the United Nations sent Unamsil to Sierra Leone. The Unamsil was a force of 17,000 peacekeepers whom then  were prohibited from conducting an investigation of diamond areas controlled by the R.U.F. The united nations has not been able to get involved but different countries have been controlling their trade market in order to stop receiving blood diamonds.