Tobacco's children

Tobacco firms are switching their sights to recruiting smokers in the developing world

Children as young as 3 work tying up tobacco leaves in Malawi

Plan carried out a recent research into the impact of the tobacco industry in developing countries. Its findings highlight that child labour is still rife on tobacco farms and that production damages the economy, environment and public health in tobacco growing countries.

 

 

The findings come as England outlawed smoking in all public places from 1st July.

Sara Philipson from Plan says: “Aggressive advertising and promotion strategies are hooking millions of the world’s poor on smoking. It’s a habit that will force them to spend a huge proportion of their income on cigarettes and add-smoking related illness to an already heavy burden of disease.”

Tobacco firms are using the same tactics of advertising and marketing on the developing world as they used in Europe 50 years ago, adds Ms Philipson.

Families who smoke in developing countries divert vital funds to the habit from necessities such as food, health and schooling. This adds to the adverse health impact of smoking while the subsequent strain on already sparse health care systems hinders national economies.

“Smoking makes the poor people even poorer,” says Ms Philipson. “The money spent on cigarettes in developing countries reduces the family’s already small resources.”

Cycle of debt

Meanwhile, tobacco growers are forced into a cycle of debt as they borrow money in the form of start-up loans for tenancies, seeds and pesticides. Low wages in the industry as a whole result in tobacco workers recruiting their own children to toil in the fields in a bid to make ends meet.

In Malawi, extreme poverty faced by thousands of families results in 80,000 children as young as seven working 11 or 12 hour days in tobacco fields for no pay.

Bernard, 12, picking tobacco leaves “I am not happy to put my children in work but we have no other choice. I cannot afford to hire outside help,” says Genisiyano. Father-of-five Genisiyano works a tiny patch of land for a local tobacco producer in Mzuzu district, close to the Zambian border. Profit margins are so tight that he has no option but to pull 12-year-old son Bernard out of school to help him in the fields. Last harvest, the family’s share of the profits was a little over £58, with which Genisiyano must feed his family for a year.

Tobacco production also harms the environment as more and more farms can lead to deforestation, while the use of pesticides pollutes water supplies. The Plan research reserves particular concern for the recruitment of child labour into the tobacco industry.

They risk exposure to chemicals, injury from tools or machinery, snake bites and green tobacco sickness, a type of nicotine poisoning contracted through the skin.

Can the tobacco industry do more?

Tobacco grown in Malawi is sold at auction to merchants and on to cigarette producers. Philip Morris, makers of Marlboro, and UK-registered British American Tobacco, whose brands include Dunhill, are the largest receivers of Malawian tobacco.

The tobacco industry responded to criticism in 2001 by setting up the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT). But a cash injection of US$2.3 million was seen as insufficient from a global industry worth US$400 billion -a-year.

Having benefited just 5,000 children in Malawi in its first six years, a country with 1.2 million child workers with an estimated 80,000 children working on tobacco farms, the ECLT project has its detractors.

Can the tobacco industry do more? “It might be that the biggest individual farmers have somewhat reduced child labour but the small and medium farmers have not and those are collectively the biggest producers of tobacco in Malawi," says Unicef child labour officer Seamus MacRobin, based in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital.  “If the tobacco industry really wants to eliminate child labour, then it can be done within ten years,” adds Mr MacRobin. ECLT response Director of ECLT, Joanne Dunn, says the foundation spent US$2 million fighting child labour in Malawi between 2002-06, with a further US$2 million up to next year. The foundation's work has also included providing 22,000 people with access to safe water, building 28 school blocks and planting 2.25 million trees.   Ms Dunn adds: "We believe that our projects, uniting children, communities, district and the national government as well as producer groups, unions and corporates provide a working example of what can be achieved in a relatively short period of time in an integrated, holistic manner."