Our regional public TV network (HR) covered an unusual story this morning.
There's a new law passed in Hessen which deals with cemetery operations and gravestones. Over the past decade, folks have begun to realize that gravestones are being imported into Germany a good bit (the unfinished product). A local 'finisher' will buy x-stones and have them ready to write upon.
Well....the stones are generally (roughly 50-percent) imported now from India (shocker there), and there's a fair amount of accusation that children are being used for labor in this stone quarry operations. 'Child-labor' is the accusation.
So Hessen wrote up a law which says that if you import gravestones....you need to have a certificate that says no children were used in the process of cutting the stone.
I paused looking over this story. What you will get is a bunch of stones imported with the right certificates and some undercover operations coming up to prove kids were in the process. Eventually, the only solution left will be to ban all gravestones being imported from India.
Why this shift over to India and getting gravestones from there? Well....it comes to two things. Unique coloring comes from Indian quarry operations, and this is a big trend here in Germany. And then there's this cost factor, with the child labor involved.
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