Looking beyond diamonds and money

This article is part of our Special Report Women and Leadership which coincides with global events in March celebrating women’s achievements. This conversation has been edited and condensed.

Her own engagement ring led Chie Murakami to a new line of international development work: improving the lives of miners. As founder and CEO of Diamonds for peace, a non-governmental organization based in Japan, Ms. Murakami, 50, has sought to improve the environmental and socio-economic conditions of diamond mining communities in developing countries, especially Liberia. The organization’s mission is threefold, Ms. Murakami said: to raise awareness of the issues surrounding diamond mining, to help support workers and to provide emergency assistance in the event of a crisis.

Why did you decide to start Diamonds for Peace?

I received my engagement ring in 2007. I didn’t know much about diamonds at the time, so I searched the internet for cheerful and fun stories about diamonds. But I didn’t find any, and I was shocked to hear about things like conflict diamonds or child labor. After learning about these issues, I started thinking about what I could do using my experience in international development in Laos, Haiti, and Kenya.

Why Liberia?

I visited Sierra Leone in 2012 to see the reality after the movie ‘Blood Diamond’. But I didn’t see much room for me to go in as a new group to do anything. After I returned to Japan, a Japanese friend who was working in Liberia as a UN volunteer introduced me to her Liberian friend. In 2014, he arranged my trip to mining communities in Liberia so I could talk to the people and observe how mining was done. When I returned to the Liberian capital Monrovia, I saw a deputy minister in the Ministry of Mines, who was leading efforts to develop a policy to organize all miners into cooperatives. Because I was thinking about fair trade in diamonds – and one of the conditions for fair trade is that workers must be organized in cooperatives or unions – I thought we were working in the same direction.

What are some specific issues impacting artisanal mining communities in Liberia?

A major problem is extreme poverty. A diamond mine worker only earns about $300 a year. The miners are trapped in a cycle of poverty. Usually minerals are owned by the government, so they must have a mining permit. Although many miners had a permit at some point in the past, most of them do not have the money to renew it, and this means that most miners mine illegally. Because they do not have a valid license, they cannot sell their diamonds to licensed brokers or licensed dealers, so they simply sell the diamonds to a local investor who does not have a brokerage license. And then those diamonds can be smuggled to other countries.

The Liberian government estimates that about half of the diamonds produced in Liberia are smuggled to other countries.

What are specific projects that Diamonds for Peace carries out in Liberia?

Typically, miners mine because there are no other jobs for them in the community. To help them diversify their sources of income, we have introduced beekeeping and fish farming.

In August 2020 we had our first beekeeper training in Weasua, Liberia. About 70 people took part in the training with experts from a Canadian NGO, Universal Outreach Foundation. We did that for two years. It takes time to harvest honey, so beekeepers must be patient.

During that time, many people dropped out and now we have about 25 to 20 active beekeepers. The reason we introduced beekeeping is that it is very efficient. Once beekeepers deploy the hives in the nearby forest, they can only care for the hives once a week, for 5 to 10 minutes per hive. They just need to clean and check the inside of the hive. This allows them to mine at the same time.

They can sell honey without any problems because the demand is very high.

What other steps has the organization taken?

We strive to increase knowledge and skills regarding diamonds and diamond mining. We did a basic two-day training on the grading and evaluation of rough diamonds, where we invited representatives from 17 mining communities.

We taught them what diamonds were used for and that value is based on the value of cut diamonds. We also provide them with training on responsible diamond mining. Many believe that the diamonds are just found randomly and they just dig everywhere. But there is a more efficient and scientific way to find out where diamonds are located. In another workplacewe taught them how to process the minerals more efficiently and reclaim the land with the help of an American diamond mining specialist.

Where do the funds come from?

Mainly from grants, currently from the Japan Fund for Global Environment.

And the basic training on rough diamond evaluation was funded by the World Bank. Other individual donors and company members support us, such as jewelry designer Mio Harutaka.

Are there women miners in Liberia?

In the community we work in, we have several female miners. In the workshops, men tend to be more resistant to what we teach. But I think women have more acceptance and are more open to the new things that we bring.