How an esoteric hype is exploiting people | DW Documentary

How an esoteric hype is exploiting people | DW Documentary

crystals have gone viral on social media celebrities swear by them I believe a lot in crystal energy and influencers sell them in vast quantities for wellness Beauty and as a health and spiritual remedy but is there any truth behind the hype and what are the working conditions of the people who Source them we investigate the crystal hype and uncover the dark side of the glossy business that spans the globe to get a glimpse behind the scenes we head to stutgart Germany there we meet a social media influencer who sells crystals we have all sorts of stuff here it looks really cool and we find ourselves in a world full of bling and fancy names that one costs €26 we have blue Amber and parido we have unicorn Stone Angel Aura star flash Rose quarts and be gets the first claim congratulations German influencer Zara B runs a crystal shop on Instagram every Wednesday evening she hosts a live sale for 8 hours straight together with her mother nearly 4,000 people are taking part in this one what a beautiful lapat ride looks really nice and the shape is so cool many of her customers attend each of her weekly sales my customers are in their mid 20s to Mid 60s some by the crystals for decorative purposes others only by jewelry some for really special ones and collect them or buy them because they do some kind of ritual with them with each of her Live Events Zara sells crystals worth an average of €1,000 her business is so successful that she quit her previous job as a social media consultant crystals have gone viral on Instagram alone # crystals and # Crystal healing get more than 40 million hits I’m not sure if it’s a trend I’m just noticing that many people are now willing to talk about it publicly thanks to social media they’ll say I think crystals are cool they’re more open about it and celebrate as a lifestyle lifestyle many celebrities are also Crystal fans the crystal sh and ask to show them crystal is real I believe a lot in Crystal energy you know when I moved to LA I enjoyed learning and educating myself about crystals I used to go to the crystal Farm I learned how to to meditate picked out a few crystals got them home yeah was definitely an effect in my life and it might just be a PLO yeah but why do I feel so much more internally strong why my meditations going deeper this one’s in the shape of heart it protects you from negative energy and brings you loving energy I love having my crystal on me this one’s Rose quarts too it’s supposed to help you attract love but I’m coming across as way too esoteric I’m not really like that the Online Marketplace is brimming with crystals and they popularity has grown since the co pandemic a study in the United States found that the number of young people between the age of 13 and 25 that use crystals or herbs as a spiritual exercise is 44% crystals are mined all over the world but much of the polishing and processing takes place in India the city of Jaipur is a hub of the industry we’re here to find out more about the people who process the stones and the conditions they work under some influences are making big money from the crystal hype but does it also benefit the local workers [Music] most of jaipur’s polishing units are small employing just a few craft people when we start filming inside a workshop a young stone cutter is asked to leave the room child labor is officially illegal in India but the law allows for some exceptions which makes it more difficult to enforce many workers tell us that they started learning how to polish gems at an early age accidents are common as 16-year-old Naf sadine tells [Music] us you can get Cuts small cuts and sometimes big cuts if you’re not careful you can also cut the stone incorrectly people who are old leave this job older people can’t do this Precision work their can’t see well enough anymore and their hands are no longer steady when you get old your hands tremble if your hands shake the gem will get cut incorrectly day laborers like Nafi sudin have no labor protections they earn between two and6 us a day too little for a family to live on [Music] it’s estimated that about 50,000 children work in Jaipur many have been trafficked into slave labor just like a 10-year-old boy we meet in a rescue shelter his mother sold him to a trafficker and he ended up working in a gemstone bangle workshop for 2 months of work he was paid the equivalent of just 12 us which was supposedly sent to his mother at home 1,000 km away the boy who we aren’t permitted to identify is willing to tell us about his ordeal what happened after your father died 40 days after his death our money dried up I went to school for another two months and after that my mother sent me here this guy came and offered to help he goes to Villages looking for children to work so my mother sent me with him he came to look for children yes for work how did you feel about doing this work I didn’t like it I was scared I would wake up at 7 in the morning start work in the unit at 9: and then had to work until 9:00 in the evening then I would have dinner and go to bed at 10:00 p.m. did you have to sit all day yes what does this picture mean to you it reminds you of the time you lived in your village right social worker rames pwal supports rescue children who have experienced severe physical and psychological abuse they are sometimes forced to sleep on an empty stomach their lunch is often late and they have dinner very late their physical and medical development stools they under huge pressure to learn this work fast learn fast and make fewer mistakes nobody speaks to them with kindness they’re traumatized they’re beaten and verbally abused we’re heading to another location where even younger children work in what are called Rat Hole Minds these two children spend their days looking for Garnet sometimes all the they find are tiny splinters climbing into these red holes is the most frightening and dangerous part of their work but there are more Stones here and some of them are larger the narrow and unsecured tunnels can collapse killing the miners red holes are illegal in India and we don’t want them to go inside while we film the children don’t know how old they are but they have learned what to look for to earn some money [Music] what’s it called l l what’s L it brings money you have a handful of stones how much will it fetch you a few cents which stone is nicer how do you know you look at it like this what exactly do you see see color what does the color mean does nicer color bring more money yes what’s that color purplish which one fetches more money purple so what you earn from picking these Stones does it help yes it helps m mom and dad yes no the two are RIS in their lives for very little reward they tell us that all the children in their Community come here to work they belong to the beal tribe one of India’s largest and poorest indigenous groups their families are landless and they live in makeshift tents they tell us that some of them suffer from silicosis a lung disease common among miners but they can’t afford Medical Care some of the communities are known as Widow villagers because so many of the men die at a young age it’s a strange Paradox here the crystals are making people sick while elsewhere influences tout them as cures for all sorts of ailments it’s clear quartz and blue appetite which is really good for helping suppress your appetite for weight loss if you’re looking for something that clears your skin takes care of your skin diseases this is it if you have back pain I recommend you placing some selon nightes where the pain is it helps you relieving the neck pain along with the shoulder pain use this remedy and let me know how it affected your life here is a super popular stone for people just starting their collection it’s selite Crystal vendara B says she doesn’t offer recommendations on how to use the stones but she knows that people are drawn to Wellness Trends on social media tumblestones are a huge trend on Tik Tok you put them in your bra for good luck or under your pillow but I don’t like it when people start selling the stones for specific illnesses for example I think that’s really a problem we’ve heard a lot about different crystals and their supposed properties but the belief in crystals wasn’t invented by influences it’s been popular for thousands of years across different cult cultures and religions from ancient Egypt and Greece to Asia and the [Music] Americas the use of crystals for Spiritual purposes has also flourished since the 1970s as part of the New Age movement but is there any scientific basis for these beliefs as a minology Peter heene has studied crystals for 25 years there is no evidence of an energy transfer of a crystal to the wearer when Crystal healers talk about this transfer of energy my concern is that they are using a scientific term for a process that is not actually very scientific Crystal healing revolves around the theory that Stones possess energies that can affect our well-being and even cure illnesses Studies have shown that crystals can have a positive benefit but that’s not due to their energy but to the placebo effect the power of belief as Thomas Plant tells us there’s nothing wrong with the placebo effect there’s nothing wrong with trying to find ways to give us Solace and and peace and comfort and community and all of that it’s just that we have to be thoughtful about at what price and make sure that we’re not missing something that could really help us because we’re going down this you know rabbit hole that’s un unproven that doesn’t stop people coming to Jaipur to buy crystals and gemstone jewelry some even come all the way from Europe and resell the jewelry at home like adol bznar who’s from France do you remember last season we have done this pandant yes I think it could be great to have this kind of pandant mhm but instead of this her MH we could put the flowers inside and he appears to little about the reality that workers face here in many of the mines and polishing workshops is a very good customer really loves this combination color if you have good energy uh you will communicate this good energy in the product and uh people will feel very uh comfortable with the product because all the this energy is the inside of the product but consumers they do not ask so much about the source of it yes they ask where it’s done they ask what quality but what is good with Gomez gems it’s visible of the product you see when you see that’s making the difference when people see the product in my show they see it’s handmade because you see the hand of the worker whether that might have been the hand of a child laborer doesn’t seem to matter much to him he buys his crystals from Gomez gems a wholesaler the company’s owner tells us they ship to 40 countries including in Europe for the polishing they work with local workshops much like the one we visited the worker who has made the object doesn’t get a fair price for it is there a problem with fair pricing in this industry I don’t think like that the reason is that we buy the raw materials for a price and we make our profit margin by selling it so it depends on how many times this product crosses how many hands how it moves along through an entire supply [Music] chain the stones pass through many hands before they reach the [Music] customer is it even possible to ensure legal standards and proper payment along such a complex supply [Music] chain it’s that that whole kind of fragmented structure of the supply chain makes it very difficult to to re really ensure that this Stone comes from this Quarry and has produced with under those environmental or social conditions in India child labor is illegal but the definition of child labor allows for loopholes children under the age of 14 are permitted to contribute to family businesses it’s believed that millions of children under age 14 work these are the countries that reportedly use child labor or bonded labor in the production of gemstones and jewelry as gemstones cross borders child labor becomes harder to identify and companies face little legal accountability a new EU Law requires companies to conduct human rights due diligence in their supply chains but it only applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and a turnover of more than €450 million e many of the gemstone businesses are beyond that um that threshold and this is also where we need a combination of public and private standards you also need uh Indian laws that really enforce for example uh the child labor doesn’t happen because if not as I said you would have a may have a clean International Supply Chain in a dirty local supply chain or a dirty supply chain for countries that don’t care about standards right we we show our footage to Zara in Germany I’d really like to see Supply chains become more transparent the way it’s now it’s impossible to fully vout for people I don’t know I would absolutely vou for my family or for my best friends but I would never be willing to vou for someone who just wants to make money who might not care about other people Zara shows us a video from one of her suppliers This Is How They present their products and production to her when confronted with the footage from India Zara tells us she usually buys from countries like Indonesia Brazil and China all I can do is to continue improving my relationship with my suppliers so I know where the stones are coming from if I leave the business if I don’t sell the stones then someone else will Zara says she tries to avoid middleman but admits it’s not always possible we get all of our standard stones from a wholesaler they come to us in a readymade package otherwise I couldn’t offer prices that can compete with what those other stores can [Music] offer okay guys there are a lot of tumblestones in it she sells some of her Stones by the scoop rather than individually look at how pretty they are I’ll put in another handful Dani you’ll get a scoop scoop Zara doesn’t tell us how much of her average perow sales of €10,000 end up as profit she’s at the end of a global supply chain a business with with winners and losers sold out or gone [Music]

On social media, crystals are hyped as a cure for all sorts of ailments, and for beauty and spiritual purposes. Consumers hope to gain all sorts of benefits. But what is life like for the adults and children sourcing the crystals? We investigate the crystal hype and discover that behind the shiny surface, there is a ruthless, profit-driven web spanning the globe. 

#documentary #dwdocumentary #DWstories
______

DW Documentary gives you knowledge beyond the headlines. Watch top documentaries from German broadcasters and international production companies. Meet intriguing people, travel to distant lands, get a look behind the complexities of daily life and build a deeper understanding of current affairs and global events. Subscribe and explore the world around you with DW Documentary.

Subscribe to:
⮞ DW Documentary (English): https://www.youtube.com/dwdocumentary
⮞ DW Documental (Spanish): https://www.youtube.com/dwdocumental
⮞ DW Documentary وثائقية دي دبليو (Arabic): https://www.youtube.com/dwdocarabia
⮞ DW Doku (German): https://www.youtube.com/dwdoku
⮞ DW Documentary हिन्दी (Hindi): https://www.youtube.com/dwdochindi

For more visit: http://www.dw.com/en/tv/docfilm/s-3610
Follow DW Documentary on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwdocumentary/
Follow DW Documental on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dwdocumental

We kindly ask viewers to read and stick to the DW netiquette policy on our channel: https://p.dw.com/p/MF1G