Ellie Arden, 11, St Ebbe's Primary, Oxford
Find out more about the award
Back in January, we announced the Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year 2011 competition. Learnnewsdesk (the Guardian's news website for schools) ran the competition in partnership with Amnesty International UK. We asked children aged seven to 14 to write up to 250 words on a human rights story.
Ellie's winning article asks: Are diamonds really a girl's best friend?
Last September I did a project at school on the history of mining. At the time Naomi Campbell had been called as a witness in the court case trying to prove that warlord Charles Taylor had been trading in 'conflict' or 'blood' diamonds to finance rebel armies in war-torn countries.
I decided to investigate. Researching on the internet, I was shocked to discover that the 'blood' shed for these diamonds often belongs to children – first those who slave in the mines; then those who are beaten because they do something like stealing a diamond; then the child soldiers, trained to harm people who they think are 'meddling in politics'.
I watched an interview with Ma Musu from Sierra Leone who was a victim of some of these rebel soldiers. They broke into her house; finding her hiding under the bed. They said, "This is the last day you will meddle with politics. Stretch out your hands to God." As she did so they cut off both her hands so they were hanging off her wrists, and left. Her children carried her to hospital were they saw many people lying dead outside.
People who buy diamonds don't have to be part of this sort of thing. You can buy them with a Kimberly Certificate that guarantees they have not financed any trauma.
When I grow up, if I can afford diamonds I will try and buy ones that cause no suffering.