UK jewellery giants in spotlight over dirty gold
Filming secretly in Britain's biggest high street jewellery chains including Argos, Goldsmiths, H. Samuel, Ernest Jones and Leslie Davis, [Channel 4's current affairs programme] Dispatches [shows] footage of shop assistants giving incorrect information about where the gold in their jewellery is sourced...The programme also delves into...unethical [sourcing] by sections of a gold mining industry that continues to exploit child miners, exposing both them and the communities who live near some mines to dangerously high levels of toxic poisoning and destroying the environment...The program[me] claims that by purchasing gold jewellery on the British high street consumers are inadvertently supporting child labour and environmental damage. [Professional Jeweller article includes responses from Goldsmiths (part of Aurum), Signet Group UK, Argos, Cookson Precious Metals. Also refers to HSBC]