Can jewelry ever be truly conflict-free?

Summary

Marketplace Morning Report – Episode Summary

Episode: Can jewelry ever be truly conflict-free?
Date: March 18, 2026
Host: Sabri Benishore (in for David Brancaccio)
Main Segment: Report by Mimi Swabi (BBC) featuring jeweler Pippa Small
Duration: Extracted content primarily from 05:50 to 08:46

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Episode Overview

This episode of Marketplace Morning Report explores the tangled journey of gold and precious gems from conflict regions to jewelry shops worldwide. Through the lens of London-based jeweler Pippa Small and the story of women miners in Colombia and Afghanistan, the episode asks: Can jewelry ever be truly conflict-free? The report delves into the ongoing challenges of supply chain transparency, environmental harm, labor abuses, and gender-based violence associated with precious metals and gems, while highlighting new initiatives that bring accountability and hope.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenges of Creating Conflict-Free Jewelry

• Supply Chain Complexity:

  • Gold and gems are "notoriously difficult to track" due to a "murky supply chain" involving both human rights abuses and environmental devastation. (05:50)

• Ease of Smuggling:

  • "Gems and gold, the disproportionate value for something very, very small makes it a really difficult material to work with because it can be smuggled, it can be moved very easily." – Pippa Small (06:30)

2. Innovative Solutions: Building Transparent, Ethical Supply Chains

• Women-Led Initiatives:

  • Associations of women around the world are crafting pieces with "fully transparent provenance," particularly in conflict-affected regions. (06:16)

• Personal Connections & Origin Stories:

  • Pippa Small leverages small, family-run mines, “certified fair trade mines,” and direct relationships with women miners to ensure ethical sourcing. She emphasizes a sense of responsibility:
    • "We work with the women planners to know and be sure and feel comfortable about how they're sourced." – Pippa Small (07:14)

• Environmental Safeguards:

  • The gold collected is panned without toxic chemicals, and the women “are so conscious of not allowing in illegal gold miners because they want their grandchildren and great grandchildren to benefit from this treasure in the rivers.” – Pippa Small (07:37)

3. On-the-Ground Realities in Colombia

• Deep Ties Between Gold and Local Identity:

  • Gold from Choco on Colombia's Pacific coast is highlighted, a region "where gold has shaped identity, conflict and survival ... for thousands of years." (07:54)

• Challenges Faced by Women Miners:

  • Carmen, a member of the Women’s Association for Artisanal Miners from Choco, speaks about the risks of illegal mining:
    • "Mining defines our lives in a challenging and complex way. ... The woman miner is a fighting woman. Illegal mining affects us deeply because we are exposed to gender based violence, labour, exploitation, the dispossession of our lands." – Carmen (08:27)
  • Carmen warns that much gold, “directly linked to this...bloodied past,” ends up in jewelry without consumer awareness.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On provenance and transparency:

  • “Jewelry, which reflects the origins of the precious metals and the women who mined them. The whole process from the riverbeds of say Columbia to a shop floor in New York is accounted for.” – Mimi Swabi (07:00)

• On women-led environmental responsibility:

  • "The women who pan this, they are so conscious of not allowing in illegal gold miners because they want their grandchildren and great grandchildren to benefit from this treasure in the rivers." – Pippa Small (07:37)

• On the lived experience of women miners:

  • "Illegal mining affects us deeply because we are exposed to gender based violence, labour, exploitation, the dispossession of our lands. Many people will be wearing gold directly linked to this, but would never know of its bloodied past, which often disproportionately affects women." – Carmen (08:27)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 05:50 — Introduction to the jewelry supply chain crisis: murky origins, abuses, and devastation.
• 06:08 — Mimi Swabi introduces Pippa Small and the provenance of lapis lazuli from Afghanistan.
• 06:30 — Pippa Small explains the unique challenges of tracing precious gems and gold; risks of smuggling.
• 06:54–07:37 — Walkthrough of a traceable, ethical supply chain, including mining, refining, goldsmith collaboration, and environmental safeguards.
• 07:54–08:46 — Firsthand testimony from Colombian women miners; links between illegal mining, violence, and ancestry.

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Summary

This episode brings clarity to the convoluted paths gold and gems travel from some of the world’s most troubled regions to the jewelry counter. It highlights the efforts of ethical jewelers and grassroots women’s groups to illuminate and reform these supply chains, countering cycles of exploitation with transparency, fair trade, and environmental care. Yet, despite these valiant efforts, the story underscores just how difficult it is to ensure that a piece of jewelry is truly conflict-free—a challenge with roots deep in global economics, history, and gender power dynamics.

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For Further Listening

For those interested in ethical consumerism, supply chain transparency, or the untold stories of women on the front lines of resource extraction, this episode provides a concise but powerful entry point—combining global business context with intimate, on-the-ground reporting.

Transcript

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Drama in big tech From Marketplace, I'm Sabri Benishore in for David Brancaccio. Big Tech is fighting There are reports this morning that Microsoft is considering suing Amazon and OpenAI. Microsoft is apparently upset about a new deal between Amazon and OpenAI that does not use Microsoft's cloud platform. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall Genser has more OpenAI

[Nancy Marshall Genser]

and Amazon announced the 50 billion dollar deal last month. OpenAI will use Amazon's cloud for a new called OpenAI Frontier. OpenAI customers can use Frontier to build teams of AI agents, I.e. bots that can operate independently without constant supervision from a human. The Financial Times is reporting that Microsoft is unhappy with this deal and says it violates an agreement it has with OpenAI. That access to OpenAI's models has to be through Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. The FT quotes a source familiar with Microsoft's position as saying, quote, we know our contract. We will sue them if they breach it. After OpenAI and Amazon announced their deal, Microsoft put out its own statement saying nothing about the announcement changed the agreement it has with OpenAI. I'm Nancy Marshall Genser for Marketplace.

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We are now two months into a major supply chain disruption that is sweeping across the nation's yarn stores. There has been a major run on red yarn and the shortage is down to a knitting pattern from 1940s Norway. Marketplace's Kaylee Wells has that Tiffany Perry

[Kaylee Wells]

is helping one of her customers knit a red hat. She's the owner of the Artful Yarn outside of Cleveland. It's got a triangle top and then

[Nancy Marshall Genser]

at the top there is like 2

[Kaylee Wells]

inches worth of a braid and a tassel at the end. It started out as a pattern signaling resistance to Nazis. In January in Minnesota, it was adapted as a symbol of resistance against immigration raids.

[Nancy Marshall Genser]

We definitely had a couple three weeks

[Kaylee Wells]

where somebody was coming in every day

[Nancy Marshall Genser]

to buy red yarn.

[Kaylee Wells]

Months later, this shop hundreds of miles away is still selling out. And one supplier says the demand for red yarn is five or 10 times higher than normal.

[Sabri Benishore]

We keep always a few months supply for each color, and in one week we were out of reds.

[Kaylee Wells]

Tobias Feder Co owns a supplier called Malabrigo Yarn.

[Sabri Benishore]

We started dying as fast as we could, and it's still out of supply.

[Kaylee Wells]

Feeder's hand dyeing company takes roughly six weeks to respond to a demand surge this big. Companies that dye yarn industrially can take up to three months. In Chagrin Falls, Ohio, I'm Kayleigh Wells for Marketplace.

[Sabri Benishore]

The Producer Price index that measures inflation from the perspective of wholesalers shows prices went up 7.10of a percent in February, 3.4% year over year. And this was before the war in the Middle east drove up oil and gas prices. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is meeting today to figure out what to do with interest rates. According According to the Atlanta Fed's Market Probability Tracker, markets now believe that the probability of the Fed raising interest rates at some point in the next three months is actually higher than the likelihood of it lowering rates.

[Pippa Small]

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[Sabri Benishore]

supply chains of gold and precious gems are notoriously difficult to track. They're often murky and involve human rights abuses and environmental devastation. The BBC's Mimi Swabi brings us the story now of one jeweler trying to change this by bringing women together from regions scarred by conflict.

[Mimi Swabi]

So which one's this one?

[Pippa Small]

That's the lapis lazuli from Afghanistan from this Badaksham region. Pure pigment.

[Mimi Swabi]

Can jewelry ever be truly conflict free? Well, associations of women around the world are not only creating pieces with fully transparent provenance, but doing it in areas that have been marked by conflict or occupation.

[Pippa Small]

Gems and gold, the disproportionate value for something very, very small makes it a really difficult material to work with because it can be smuggled, it can be moved very easily.

[Mimi Swabi]

Pippa Small is a jeweler based in London. She's devised a system that links all these networks creating responsible, traceable supply chains for gold and silver, which in turn help their transformation into jewelry.

[Pippa Small]

These kind of beautiful stormy libre with those flashes of blue. Amazing.

[Mimi Swabi]

God, they really do catch the light. Jewelry, which reflects the origins of the precious metals and the women who mined them. The whole process from the riverbeds of say Columbia to a shop floor in New York is accounted for.

[Pippa Small]

We're really careful to work with small family run mines, certified fair trade mines. We work with the women planners to know and be sure and feel comfortable about how they're sourced.

[Mimi Swabi]

The gold next goes to a refinery and from there a local goldsmith where design collaboration starts. Looking around saw there are many collections and I can see a tray with gold from Colombia.

[Pippa Small]

They are sourced from a group of women panners. So this means that there's none of the toxic chemicals that are often used with mining. The women who pan this, they are so conscious of not allowing in illegal gold miners because they want their grandchildren and great grandchildren to benefit from this treasure in the rivers.

[Mimi Swabi]

These pieces are made from gold from Choco on Colombia's Pacific coast. A place where gold has shaped identity, conflict and survival. The for thousands of years. Much of today's mining is informal or illegal and often linked to armed criminal groups. Carmen is a registered miner and member of the Women's association for Artisanal Miners from Choco. Mining defines our lives in a challenging and complex way. I think that the woman miner is a fighting woman. Illegal mining affects us deeply because we are exposed to gender based violence, labour, exploitation, the dispossession of our lands. Many people will be wearing gold directly linked to this, but would never know of its bloodied past, which often disproportionately affects women.

[Sabri Benishore]

That was Mimi Swabi with our partners at the BBC in New York. I'm Sabri Benishore with the Marketplace Morning report. From apm, American Public Media.

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