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| Tobacco is known locally in Malawi as "green gold", but the southern African nation must wrestle with allegations of child labour if the industry is to have a future (AFP Photo/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA) |
Blantyre (Malawi) (AFP) - Malawi is being forced to confront child and forced labour practices after the US restricted tobacco imports from the impoverished southeastern African nation over allegations workers including children were being exploited.
Although
exports to the United States make up only a small part of Malawi's total, the
US move could make it harder selling its tobacco elsewhere and has sparked
anxiety among farmers who fear they will be forced to accept lower prices.
As tobacco,
known locally as "green gold", is Malawi's top crop in terms of
employment, foreign exchange earnings (60 percent) and tax revenue (25
percent), any trouble the sector runs into could quickly reverberate throughout
the economy.
The US
decision piles even more pressure on the tobacco sector, already confronted
with global anti-tobacco campaigns.
The trouble
began in late October. British law firm Leigh Day announced it was preparing a
landmark class action case against British American Tobacco (BAT) on behalf of
2,000 Malawian farmers, including hundreds of children, for forced labour and
poverty wages.
BAT, which
says it "takes the issue of child labour extremely seriously", has
denied any wrongdoing and noted that it buys tobacco from Malawi via
international dealers who are required adhere to a code of conduct that does
not tolerate child and forced labour.
The US
suspended imports of tobacco from Malawi, saying it had information that
reasonably indicated it was being produced using forced labour and forced child
labour.
Third of
children work
According
to a survey conducted in 2017 by the country's statistics agency the use of
child labour in Malawi is extensive. It found that 38 percent of the country’s
children aged between five and 17 were working.
Although
the survey did not provide specific information about the tobacco sector, it is
widely acknowledged that child labour is a problem.
Betty
Chinyamunyamu, who heads an association of smallholder farmers, said incidents
of child labour occur despite efforts to eliminate the practice.
"In
some cases, farmers may think that that is the way things are supposed to be
without knowing that they are engaging in child labour," she said.
Tobacco and
Allied Workers Union general secretary Raphael Sandram accused the government
of dithering in addressing child labour in the industry.
"In
our labour report in 2015, we raised the issue that there were some
irregularities in the industry that government needed to address," he
said.
"The
fact that the government did not respond according to the requirements of the
US government means that they delayed to act on these issues. But these issues
have been there for a long time," he said.
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Malawian
children carrying tobacco leaves on a farm in 2009. A government survey
conducted two years ago found that more than one in three childen work (AFP
Photo/
FELIX MPONDA)
|
Pushing
for compliance
Agriculture
Minister Kondwani Nankhumwa acknowledged pockets of child and forced labour in
Malawi, but downplayed the US action saying it "is not a ban, they are
just pushing for compliance".
US
authorities said firms wishing to import Malawi tobacco into the country will
need to demonstrate it was not produced with forced labour. But what will be
needed to convince US authorities and how much effort firms will be willing to
take is unclear.
Nankhumwa
said 80 percent of Malawi's tobacco was grown under a special scheme which is
free from child or forced labour.
"So,
we are only grappling with the 20 percent within which there is also some kind
of compliance," he said.
The law
firm Leigh Day described a tobacco farming system that puts farmers under
extreme pressure.
Leaf buyers
who sell to multinational tobacco firms make contracts with landowners who then
engage tenant farmers who spend 10 months on the plantations. Each tenant
farmer is allotted around a hectare but needs four workers to work that amount
of land.
"However,
the amount the tenant farmers are paid for their crop is too low for them to be
able to afford to employ workers to help on the farms. As a result, they have
no option but to rely on their children to work on the farms," said Leigh
Day in a statement.
Bone of
contention
Nankhumwa
pledged Malawi would conduct the necessary policy reviews to protect the
tobacco industry and bring the country into compliance with global standards.
"The
government is reviewing the tenancy system, which is a bone of contention but
also perceived to be catalyst for child and forced labour," he said.
Farmers --
who are starting to prepare their fields for the next planting season -- are
distraught at the prospect of being squeezed further by falling prices.
"We
are baffled and confused," said Alick Yagontha, a small farmer in the
northern Rumphi district who has been growing tobacco for two decades and
harvested 28,000 kilograms this year.
He fears
there will be "no future for tobacco farming in Malawi" if prices
fall.
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