Earthlife Africa official Richard Sherman said in a statement the organisation would urge this during a submission to the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the South African diamond industry on Wednesday.
"Earthlife sees the commission as the first real opportunity in the history of the mining industry for civil society to express its hopes and concerns," he said, adding one of the concerns was that the Diamond Board was composed entirely of government and industry representatives.
"The main thrust of the submission will be at opening up the diamond industry to public scrutiny. The diamond industry is shrouded in mystery and Earthlife hopes that the commission will make recommendations that will begin lifting that veil."
Sherman said his organisation would present a submission focusing on the role of an alleged diamond cartel, social and environmental impacts of mining, land and mineral rights and child labour and its links to the South African diamond industry.
"This is the first public inquiry into the diamond industry for decades and we hope that it will be more constructive than previous ones which only sought to protect the diamond industry's interests," he said.
"The South African diamond mining industry was allowed to heavily influence the thinking and power base of the apartheid state. The apartheid state had always recognised and protected the immense mineral wealth in South Africa and to do so devised degrading laws and systems to deny the majority of South African citizens their rights to humanity, dignity and land.
"The diamond cartel benefited from apartheid institutions like the compound system, the pass laws, migrant labour system, job reservation, forced removals and cheap labour combined with horrendous working and living conditions."
Sherman said with the expansion of the SA diamond industry into Africa, Earthlife would like to see stricter measures to regulate multinationals like De Beers.