At 13, Manoj Bawaji joined the great migration from the country to the city in the hope of a better life. Years of drought devastated his family's cotton farm. To provide an income for his family, Manoj is putting his faith in diamonds.
Indian diamond cutters have revolutionized what we think of as a diamond. Stones once thought too small for jewelry, some hardly bigger than a grain of sand, require small, steady hands to cut. Manoj is one of thousands of child diamond cutters in India, a country where ninety percent of the world's diamonds are now cut.
It wasn't long ago that international NGOs peered into the tightly packed diamond cutting shops of Surat and told the world of an industry rife with child labour abuses. Manoj himself has the equivalent of a grade seven education. He works so that his younger brother and sister can go to school. Diamonds are his life now; this is how his family will survive. Still, the industry can exact a harsh price on even the most full-grown of men and Manoj is only beginning.
These days the workers of Surat tend to their diamonds without too much media attention. Most agree that though not erased completely, the number of child cutters has declined due to the industry's consolidation and maturation into professionally managed companies.
View a story featuring Manoj Bawaji
Sierra Leone, West Africa, is one of the ten largest diamond-producing countries in the world, yet it is one of the world's poorest nations. There are virtually no jobs in Sierra Leone so most young men have no choice but to dig for diamonds.
Mohammed Dabo, 45, has spent day after day for 25 years knee deep in mud. He is one of about 150,000 miners in Sierra Leone. Mohammed works in the mines so that his 7 children can be spared the life of a digger. Mohammed calls his work slavery, but in a country where there is little other employment, it means survival.
In Sierra Leone a typical diamond miner is a young male - there are few women actively involved - and he is most likely uneducated. While the vast majority of the miners are young adults, there are significant numbers of children as well.
Children are often employed by their parents or wards in the diamond fields, and some mining license holders employ orphans or children from poorer families as cheap labour.
In June 2007, the Sierra Leonean government passed the long-awaited Child Rights Act which provides for the protection of children against all forms of exploitation, including labour exploitation. In August 2007, the country went to the polls. The election is only its second since it emerged from a brutal eleven-year civil war. The diamonds which helped sustain that civil war are still the only source of income for many children and their families. What other options will be available to Mohammed's children and the youth of Sierra Leone under the new Child Rights Act, and the new government, remains to be seen.