When a room full of founders looked at the imagery I'd built around Larimar, one comment landed harder than the rest. Someone in that room knew something I didn't yet know myself: children mine this stone in the Dominican Republic.
I did not know that when I chose Larimar. I know it now, and I am not interested in building a mission around protecting children while looking away from a hard truth about the very stone carrying that mission.
So, I researched it directly, and here is what I found:
Larimar exists in exactly one place on earth, the Bahoruco mountain range in the southwestern Dominican Republic. Between 2008 and 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor documented children working in Larimar mining there, small enough to reach tunnel spaces adults could not. That finding is part of the public record. It is part of this stone's history, and I will not soften it to make this collection easier to sell.
Here is what has changed since. In 2025, the primary Larimar mine implemented reforms, banning child labor outright, adding security checkpoints, medical units, and reinforcing unstable tunnels for worker safety. Separately, a Larimar workshop school has operated since 2014, training local artisans in cutting and polishing above ground, building a skilled trade around the stone rather than only extraction beneath it.
I also want to tell you about the limits of what I can promise you. My Larimar is sourced through a wholesale vendor who draws from multiple stone companies across the region, standard practice in this industry. I asked that vendor directly for a written attestation of ethical mining practices. They told me plainly: they do not provide that kind of letter, and no client has asked them for one before. I cannot hand you a document that does not exist. What I can hand you is this: my own research, stated plainly, and a standing commitment to keep asking, keep learning, and keep telling you what I find, even when it complicates the story I originally wanted to tell.
I want to be equally careful here about what I am not claiming. Vulnerable labor is a documented reality across several Dominican industries: agriculture, construction, and others, and reporting on this is extensive and serious. I have not found credible, specific documentation connecting that broader reality to Larimar mining directly, and I will not imply a connection I cannot verify. Getting this wrong would not make this collection more honest. It would make it less accurate, and accuracy is the entire point of writing this.
Here is why I am telling you all of this instead of simply letting the beauty of the finished piece speak for itself. A stone with a difficult history does not disqualify it from carrying a better purpose. It requires that purpose to be built with open eyes, not closed ones. I chose Larimar because it is rare, because it is beautiful, and because it demanded something of me before I ever asked it to represent protection for someone else's child. That demand was honesty. This is me meeting it.
Thirty percent of every sale from the Larimar Children's Compass Collection goes directly to Freedom Insight's work protecting children from trafficking. That commitment does not erase this stone's history. It is what I am choosing to build on top of it, in full view, starting now.
Corinthia Peoples
Founder, CORINTHIA PEOPLES Designs