Is That Next Puff Worth It For Malawi?

Tobacco is major use of people around the world, it is estimated that 46.2 million adults in the United States smoke cigarettes. Where does tobacco come from? Have you ever wondered about the work going into growing this major cash crop? Many who smoke do not know the work that goes into making these tiny finely ground tobacco wrapped in white paper, used for smoking. Most pay seven dollars a pack sometimes more, prices continue to escalate while people continue to stay hooked. 

This crop is farmed in over one hundred countries and the growing of it is very intensive and requires thirty three million workers at farm level. The site (http://www.eclt.org/about/tobacco.html) also states that as in other agricultural sectors, child labor is prevalent, particularly in the poorer areas, the whole family is involved in cultivation and harvesting process. 

The following facts about child labor have been extracted from previous studies:

Seventy-eight percent of children between 10 and 14 years work either full-time or part-time with their parents at the estates. A study in the Thyolo district, in Malawi, found that children between 6 and 14 years account for 8 per cent of all regularly working household members in male-headed households and 29 per cent in female-headed households

20 per cent of all children under 15 years were reported by their parents as working full-time and a further 21 per cent were working part-time. For children 10 to 14 years, the proportion working full-time and part-time were 46 and 32 per cent respectively. Children under 10 years of age were also found working alongside their parents as full-time workers in almost all the tasks of tobacco cultivation. About 43 per cent of the estates have children as direct laborers, and 46 per cent as casual laborers. The proportion of owners and managers providing wage rates for child employees was 8 per cent in the case of children working as direct laborers and 15 per cent where they were employed as casual laborers. There seems to be no discrimination between male and female children as far as child labor is concerned.

Tobacco grower employers expecting the working children to clean tobaccos and other crop plantations, make brakes, building tobacco drying sheds, prepare tobacco nurseries, sow tobacco seedlings, water tobacco seedlings, transplant tobacco seedlings and tilling tobacco ridges, Fertilize tobacco plants, weed tobacco and other crops, cut poles and logs of firewood, carry poles and logs of firewood from forests, pluck tobacco leaves, hang tobacco leaves on poles in tobacco drying sheds, smoke tobacco leaves, plait tobacco leaves, grade tobacco leaves, tie tobacco leaves in bundles, sell tobacco, burn tobacco stems and harvest other crops.

Before you light that cigarette, think your not only killing yourself, your also killing the child who sets your death.