Smokers hazy on use of child labour

Australia’s cigarette trade is being propped up by the exploitation of children, with new figures revealing more than $16 million of tobacco grown using cheap child labour is being imported every year.

An analysis of United Nations trade data shows that almost 3000 tonnes of tobacco was imported last year from countries using child labour to cultivate crops.

Anti-smoking group ASH Australia, which compiled the figures, warns that children as young as five are being paid a pittance to work in the tobacco trade, and face serious health risks from nicotine poisoning.

ASH chief executive Anne Jones said while most smokers now knew the health risks, many would be unaware their cigarettes largely came from countries such as India, the Philippines, Thailand and Malawi, where child labour was rife.

”Many are being taken out of school and some are working up to seven hours a day. In many countries they’re earning less than a dollar a day, so there’s a huge amount of exploitation,” she said.

”And in terms of the health risks there’s this terrible disease that you get from handling raw, green tobacco because nicotine is absorbed through the skin and children are particularly vulnerable to that. If you’re absorbing nicotine you’re also probably becoming addicted to it,” Ms Jones said.

Tobacco production in Australia ceased during the mid-1990s as state and federal governments offered grants to encourage tobacco farmers to exit the trade.

Since the 1960s, there has been a 50 per cent decline in tobacco growing in high-income countries, while low to middle-income countries, where child labor is common, have reported a 300 per cent increase.

Tobacco companies set up the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation in 2001, but Ms Jones said that compared with other industries that had taken definitive action, the organisation was just paying lip service to the issue.

”Using children to grow and manufacture tobacco is in direct violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, but unlike other industries who say we’re going to stamp out child labor, the tobacco industry is just handing out Band-Aid solutions,” she said.

In 2012, following a Fairfax Media investigation, Sherrin – Australia’s leading brand of footballs – pulled all ball manufacturing from its Indian subcontractors after it was revealed children as young as 10 were being exploited in the trade.

A report released in June by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance said the industry was hiding behind corporate social responsibility activities directed at children and farming communities but the problem remained entrenched, and there had been no target date set to eradicate the practice.

”It is extraordinary for an industry to continue purchasing and profiting from a product made with child labour without a definitive phase-out or zero-tolerance policy in place,” the report said.

Scott McIntyre, senior corporate affairs manager for British American Tobacco Australia, said in a statement: ”We firmly agree that children must never be exploited, exposed to danger or denied an education. We make it clear to all of our contracted farmers and suppliers that exploitative child labour will not be tolerated.”

Mr McIntyre said the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation was advised by the International Labour Organisation. ”Reflecting the ILO’s stance, it recognises that in poor communities, often on small family farms, low-risk work that doesn’t interfere with schooling and leisure time can be a normal part of growing up in a rural environment.”

A spokeswoman for Imperial Tobacco Group said the company’s policy was to ensure the group and its subsidiaries did not employ children.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/smokers-hazy-on-use-of-child-labour-20130928-2ulat.html#ixzz2gKt3ZkOA