If you search the phrase “Fair Trade Jewelry” you will find a long list of websites that claim to sell the jewelry based on the fair trade sprits. However, this doesn’t mean that what they claim is true. Unlike other fair trade such as handicrafts, coffee, bananas and fresh food that are relatively recognized in applying the spirit of fair trade, jewelry is more complicated than that.
Some requirements for cooperatives to be classified as fair trade are that they musn’t use any under-aged labors, pay fair wages and are friendly to the environment in making the jewelry. The thing that makes fair trade jewelry hard to classify is that jewelry need to be mined. The process of mining is quite difficult to monitor.
However, once a cooperative from the developing countries able to put their jewelry in the fair trade market, they will get better price and hence they can make more money and have decent living. As a result, they can create other high quality jewelry since they won’t have to worry about money anymore.
Making the craftsmen to have an independent life is the original purpose of fair trade jewelry. It grows eve bigger when some people starting to established some organizations for this purpose.