Forced Labour in the Gem Trade

Coercion, supply-chain accountability, and the movement towards responsible sourcing in gemstones and jewellery

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Forced labour — defined under international law as work extracted under the menace of a penalty and for which the individual has not offered themselves voluntarily — is a documented reality within segments of the global gemstone supply chain. From ruby and jade mines in Myanmar to sapphire workings in parts of Madagascar and East Africa, and from artisanal gold extraction in the Democratic Republic of Congo to cutting workshops in South and Southeast Asia, coercive labour practices have been recorded by human rights organisations, government agencies, and investigative journalists over several decades. The issue is not peripheral to the jewellery industry; it sits at the intersection of consumer demand for coloured stones, the structural vulnerabilities of artisanal and small-scale mining, and the opacity of multi-tier supply chains that can separate a finished ring from its source by six or more commercial transactions. Understanding forced labour in the gem trade requires engagement with its documented forms, its principal geographies, the legal frameworks that now compel corporate disclosure, and the sourcing initiatives that attempt — with varying degrees of rigour — to address it.

Definitions and Legal Framework

The International Labour Organization's Forced Labour Convention (No. 29, 1930) and its 2014 Protocol provide the foundational international definition: all work or service exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered themselves voluntarily. The ILO identifies eleven indicators of forced labour, including debt bondage, retention of identity documents, threats and violence, restriction of movement, and withholding of wages. Child labour — separately addressed under ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour — frequently overlaps with forced labour in artisanal mining contexts, where children may be deployed in narrow shafts or in ore-washing operations.

At the national legislative level, the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 was a landmark instrument. Section 54 of the Act requires commercial organisations with an annual turnover of £36 million or more that supply goods or services in the United Kingdom to publish an annual transparency statement disclosing the steps taken — or, notably, confirming that no steps have been taken — to ensure that slavery and human trafficking are not present in their business or supply chains. The Act does not mandate a specific standard of due diligence; it requires disclosure, and critics have noted that a statement confirming inaction is technically compliant. Subsequent calls for reform, including a 2019 independent review, recommended mandatory content requirements and financial penalties for non-compliance, though as of the mid-2020s the Act had not been substantially amended in this regard.

The US Tariff Act of 1930, as amended by the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2016, prohibits the importation of goods produced in whole or in part by forced labour, including convict labour and indentured labour. US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) may issue Withhold Release Orders (WROs) against specific entities or commodities. In 2021, CBP issued a WRO against jade and rubies mined in Myanmar by Myanma Gems Enterprise (MGE), the state-owned entity that controls gem extraction in that country, citing reasonable indication of forced labour and other human rights abuses. The Burma Act provisions within the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 further restricted imports of certain Myanmar-origin goods.

The European Union's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CS3D), adopted in 2024, goes further than disclosure-only regimes by requiring large companies to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for adverse human rights and environmental impacts across their value chains, with civil liability provisions. The EU Conflict Minerals Regulation (2021), modelled partly on the US Dodd-Frank Act Section 1502, applies mandatory due diligence obligations to importers of tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold — the so-called 3TG minerals — but does not yet cover coloured gemstones, a gap that advocacy organisations continue to highlight.

Documented Geographies and Supply Chains

Myanmar represents the most extensively documented case of forced labour intersecting with high-value gemstone production. The Mogok Stone Tract in Mandalay Region and the Hpakant jade fields in Kachin State have both been subjects of sustained investigation. Human Rights Watch's 2019 report "Jade and the Generals" documented how jade extraction in Hpakant — the world's most productive jadeite source, generating billions of dollars in annual revenue — operated under conditions that included dangerous and unregulated artisanal scavenging, pervasive drug addiction among workers, and the concentration of profits within military-linked conglomerates. The February 2021 military coup intensified these concerns: the armed forces (Tatmadaw) and associated entities exercise direct control over the Myanmar Gems Enterprise, which manages ruby, sapphire, spinel, and jade licensing. The US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report has consistently placed Myanmar on its Tier 2 Watch List or Tier 3 for failure to meet minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, with gem-sector labour among the documented concerns.

In East and Central Africa, artisanal ruby and sapphire mining in Mozambique's Montepuez district, Tanzania's Umba Valley, and Madagascar's various sapphire fields has been associated with hazardous working conditions, child labour, and, in some documented instances, debt bondage arrangements facilitated by local middlemen. Global Witness's investigations into Montepuez — where Gemfields operates a large-scale ruby concession — documented violence by security forces against artisanal miners in the early years of the operation, though Gemfields subsequently implemented community engagement and responsible sourcing protocols. The artisanal sector surrounding large concessions remains difficult to monitor.

South and Southeast Asia present forced labour risks at the cutting and polishing stage rather than exclusively at the mine. Gem-cutting industries in Jaipur (India), Bangkok (Thailand), and Colombo (Sri Lanka) range from large, auditable factories to informal home-based piece-work networks. Debt bondage and child labour in informal cutting workshops have been documented by NGOs including the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre. The informal nature of sub-contracting — where a branded jeweller may source from a trading house that sources from a wholesaler that employs informal cutters — makes traceability extremely difficult.

Structural Vulnerabilities of Artisanal Mining

Approximately 80 per cent of the world's coloured gemstones are estimated to originate from artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operations. ASM is characterised by low capitalisation, informal tenure arrangements, physical remoteness, and limited state oversight. These structural features create conditions in which labour exploitation can occur with limited accountability. Workers may accept advances from mine operators or traders — creating debt relationships that constrain their freedom to leave — in the absence of formal wage structures or legal employment contracts. In conflict-affected areas, armed groups may impose taxation on miners or directly control extraction, with labour coercion as an instrument of control.

The challenge for responsible sourcing is that ASM also represents a legitimate livelihood for millions of people in some of the world's poorest regions. Blanket exclusion of ASM-origin stones from supply chains — sometimes called "cut-off" sourcing — may simply transfer economic activity to less scrupulous buyers without improving conditions for miners. The Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and the Fairmined standard have sought to address this by certifying ASM operations that meet defined social, environmental, and labour standards, enabling them to access premium markets. As of the mid-2020s, Fairmined certification remained limited in scale within the coloured gemstone sector, though it has achieved greater penetration in gold.

Industry Responses and Responsible Sourcing Initiatives

The jewellery industry has developed a range of voluntary and quasi-regulatory responses to forced labour risk. Their effectiveness varies considerably.

The Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) operates a certification system against its Code of Practices, which includes requirements relating to human rights, labour rights, and supply-chain due diligence. RJC certification covers a significant portion of the mainstream jewellery industry by value. Critics note that audit-based certification systems can be gamed, that announced audits are less reliable than unannounced ones, and that the RJC's membership model creates potential conflicts of interest. The RJC has nonetheless progressively strengthened its standards, incorporating alignment with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), established in 2003 to address conflict diamonds, is frequently cited as a cautionary model for coloured gemstones: its narrow definition of "conflict diamonds" (stones funding rebel movements against legitimate governments) excludes diamonds produced under state-sponsored forced labour or by governments committing human rights abuses, a limitation that has drawn sustained criticism from civil society organisations including Global Witness, which withdrew from the process in 2011.
Provenance and traceability programmes have proliferated, ranging from blockchain-based systems (Everledger, Tracr) to paper-based chain-of-custody documentation. Gemmological laboratories including GIA, Gübelin, and SSEF offer origin determination services that can establish a stone's probable geographic source, though origin determination is a probabilistic scientific assessment rather than a legal chain-of-custody record. Gübelin's Provenance Proof initiative embeds nano-particles at the mine level to create a physical link between stone and source. These technologies are promising but remain limited in coverage and are not yet standard practice across the industry.
Direct sourcing and vertically integrated supply chains are pursued by some jewellers and brands as a means of reducing intermediary opacity. Companies including Nineteen48 (Sri Lankan sapphires) and several Fairtrade-certified gold suppliers have built models premised on direct relationships with mining communities. Such models are commercially viable for premium products but cannot easily be scaled across the full breadth of the gem market.

The Role of Gemmological Laboratories and Origin Reports

Gemmological origin determination — the scientific assessment of a stone's probable geographic provenance based on chemical composition, inclusion fingerprint, and spectroscopic signature — has become an increasingly important tool in responsible sourcing discourse. A credible origin report from a respected laboratory such as GIA, Gübelin, SSEF, or Lotus Gemology can establish that a ruby is consistent with Mozambican rather than Myanmar origin, thereby enabling buyers to avoid stones from sanctioned or high-risk sources. However, origin determination has important limitations in this context: it establishes probable geographic origin, not the specific mine, operator, or labour conditions under which a stone was extracted. A Mozambican ruby may originate from a responsibly operated concession or from informal artisanal workings with no labour oversight. Origin reports are a necessary but not sufficient instrument for due diligence.

The US sanctions regime against Myanmar gem imports has created significant commercial demand for non-Myanmar origin reports, and laboratories have reported increased submission volumes of rubies and spinels for origin assessment since the 2021 coup and associated sanctions tightening. This underscores the practical intersection between gemmological science and trade compliance.

Consumer Awareness and Market Dynamics

Consumer awareness of forced labour in gem supply chains has grown, driven by NGO campaigns, investigative journalism, and the broader ESG (environmental, social, and governance) movement in investment and corporate governance. Surveys conducted by organisations including the Responsible Jewellery Council and various academic institutions suggest that a meaningful proportion of consumers — particularly younger demographics — express willingness to pay a premium for responsibly sourced gemstones, though the gap between stated preference and purchasing behaviour remains a documented phenomenon in consumer research.

The luxury segment of the jewellery market has been particularly active in responsible sourcing communication, in part because brand reputation risk is proportionally greater for high-value goods and in part because the premium pricing of luxury goods creates margin to absorb the costs of enhanced due diligence. Major auction houses including Christie's and Sotheby's have introduced provenance disclosure requirements for certain categories of gemstones. The coloured stone trade at the wholesale level — dominated by small and medium enterprises operating across multiple jurisdictions — has been slower to adopt formalised due diligence processes, though industry associations including the International Coloured Gemstone Association (ICA) have published guidance documents on responsible sourcing.

Persistent Challenges and the Path Forward

Several structural challenges impede progress. The multi-tier, multi-jurisdictional nature of gem supply chains means that legal liability under national due diligence laws is difficult to establish. Regulatory frameworks in major producing countries are often weak, underfunded, or subject to capture by the same interests that benefit from exploitative labour practices. Voluntary certification schemes, however well-designed, cannot substitute for effective state regulation and enforcement in producing countries. And the economics of artisanal mining — characterised by poverty, informality, and the absence of alternative livelihoods — mean that labour exploitation is often embedded in conditions of structural deprivation that no single industry initiative can resolve.

The trajectory of regulation is nonetheless clearly towards greater mandatory disclosure and, increasingly, mandatory due diligence. The EU CS3D, national modern slavery legislation in the UK, Australia, Canada, and Norway, and the expanding use of import restrictions and sanctions by the United States represent a cumulative tightening of the legal environment for businesses that cannot demonstrate reasonable steps to identify and address forced labour in their supply chains. For the jewellery industry, this regulatory direction reinforces the commercial and reputational case for investment in traceability, supplier engagement, and third-party verification — not as optional ethical enhancements but as baseline requirements for operating in major consumer markets.