Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
Poisoned Child Workers in Malawi
Child labourers, some as young as five,
are working in tobacco fields and
being exposed to high levels of nicotine
Plan International has released a report (August 2009) on working conditions on tobacco
plantations in Malawi in 
southern Africa. The study says that at least 78,000 children
are toiling in tobacco fields, but the suspicion is the numbers may be much higher.
Multinationals Move Tobacco Growing to Africa
Writing about the Plan International study in The Globe and Mail Geoffrey York commented that, “Until recently, much of the North American cigarette industry was getting its tobacco from farmers in southwestern Ontario and North Carolina and similar tobacco belts.”
However, the tobacco industry has moved a lot of its tobacco growing to Africa where the cost of labour is much lower; the Plan report says that most of the child workers in Malawi are paid barely $5 a month.
According to the study, local tobacco farmers don’t benefit from the profits of the multinational tobacco companies and struggle to break even. As a result they look for ways to cut costs and that leads to the use of child labour.
The children told researchers that they had to work “to support themselves, their families, and pay school fees.”
Children Exposed to Nicotine
The Plan International report “has revealed how child tobacco pickers in Malawi are
being exposed to high levels of nicotine poisoning -
In addition to enduring physical and sexual abuse from plantation owners many of the children are showing signs of Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS).
Plan explains that “This is a common and recognized hazard of workers absorbing nicotine through their skin by contact with moist tobacco leaves. There is a lack of research into long term effects of GTS in children, but experts believe it could seriously impair their development.”
Green Tobacco Sickness
The symptoms of GTS include coughing, muscle weakness, severe headaches, abdominal pain, and difficulty in breathing. All of these warning signs were reported by the 44 children who were extensively interviewed for the study.
One child said: “Sometimes it feels like you don’t have enough breath, you don’t have enough oxygen. You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest. Then the blood comes when you vomit. At the end, most of this dies and then you remain with a headache.”
A truck in Malawi loaded with bales of tobacco showing that safety is not a primary concern
Pressure on Tobacco Companies
to Improve Working Conditions
“Plan is now calling upon tobacco companies and plantations to vastly improve working conditions and live up to their own promised corporate responsibility guidelines by scrutinizing their suppliers far more closely.
“They should provide safe environments and non-
Plan International is also trying to get the government of Malawi to take a more active role in improving the lives of the people caught up in this problem.
Image credits
Plan International
Sources
“Child Tobacco Pickers Poisoned, Reveals Report.” Plan International, August 24 2009.
“Children Poisoned Picking Tobacco, Study Finds.” Geoffrey York, Globe and Mail, August 24, 2009.
“Kazakhstan: Migrant Tobacco Workers Cheated, Exploited.” Human Rights Watch, July 14, 2010.
© Canada and the World, October 2010
All rights reserved
Malawi is the world’s fifth biggest tobacco producer and the crop accounts for 70 percent of export income.
Around the world 5.5 trillion cigarettes are smoked annually.
EXPLOITATION ELSEWHERE
According to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report (July 2010) tobacco workers are exploited elsewhere in the world.
The report says contractors cheated workers “of earnings, and required them to work excessively long hours. Human Rights Watch also documented frequent use of child labour, with children as young as 10 working, even though tobacco farming is especially hazardous for children.”
A documentary (May 2010) produced by the U.K.’s Channel 4 found that “children as young as three are being illegally employed to produce tobacco.”