Tobacco.org

WISHART: Malawi's children pay dearly for the world's cheap tobacco 

THE tobacco industry in Myrtleford died in late 2006 when British American Tobacco and Philip Morris decided they could buy tobacco leaves cheaper elsewhere. Indeed they could, with about 85 per cent of global production now coming from developing countries such as China, Brazil, Zimbabwe and Malawi. What they didn't reveal is the human cost of this low-priced leaf.

Seventy-eight thousand children are employed in the tobacco farms of Malawi in conditions barely better than slavery, daily enduring gross violations of their rights. They are paid just two cents an hour, working up to 12 hours a day. The work is unrelenting and pay is often docked for the cost of any food the employer might provide. The children are routinely abused, both physically and emotionally, to make them work harder and longer. Girls in particular are subjected to sexual abuse, often coerced by threats of withholding food, pay or employment. . . .

Tobacco multinationals have form when it comes to externalities. They have consistently treated the adverse cost of smoking as an externality that is not their responsibility. Only aggressive regulation and legal action in the developed countries of the world has managed to rein them in.

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