Alice Grainger Gasser, corresponding author. Contributing authors: Leonce Dieudonné Sessou, Fastone Goma, Lutgard Kokulinda Kagaruki, Marty Otanez, Hellen Neima At the end of October, the Governing Body of the International Labour Organization (ILO) endorsed its new integrated strategy for the tobacco sector. The decision ends ILO’s involvement in over a decade of tobacco industry corporate […]
Category: Child labour
Ending child labour in tobacco production by 2025: the tobacco industry is the problem, not part of the solution
Mary Assunta Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) Related: more than 100 organisations call on ILO not to renew tobacco industry contracts Today is World Day Against Child Labour and this article is dedicated to the millions of children trapped in child labour. It is a reminder that in the 21st century we have failed […]
ILO must shake off tobacco industry yoke
Mary Assunta and Ulysses Dorotheo Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) On 1 November the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Governing Body will make a decision about continuing or ending its relationship with the tobacco industry. However, the reference document (GB.331/POL/5) prepared by the ILO’s secretariat, the International Labour Office (the Office), to assist the […]
Commentary on the launch of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World
Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva September 2017 saw the launch of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, which describes itself as “an independent, non-profit organization created to accelerate global efforts to reduce health impacts and deaths from smoking, with the goal of ultimately eliminating smoking worldwide”. The creation of such an organization would usually […]
Big tobacco, child labour and the International Labour Organization
“The aim is to inhibit incorporation of ILO into WHO Anti-Smoking Program” So states a Philip Morris memo from December 1988, available through the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents (see page 8). Nearly 30 years on, the tobacco industry appears to be doing very well at nurturing its alliance with the International Labour Organization […]
Tobacco industry confronted with child labour
By Laura Graen, www.forchangemakers.com In late 2014, the tobacco industry was confronted with the revelation of child labour on US tobacco farms, detailed in a well-researched 139 page report published by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The USA is not alone; most major tobacco producing countries use child labour in tobacco growing. In other words, […]
US: Child Workers in Danger on Tobacco Farms
A Human Rights Watch report which included interviews with more than 100 child tobacco farm laborers in the South of the US has ruled that tobacco farming is so hazardous to children, it must be stopped. The report documents how children are sickened by nicotine and toxic pesticides, work long hours in extreme heat without […]
Southeast Asia: New report on child labour in the tobacco industry
A new report has been released by The Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) entitled Child labour in tobacco cultivation in the ASEAN Region. Launched in Jakarta, Indonesia on 12 June in commemoration of World Day Against Child Labour, the report is a response to the major problem of child labour in the cultivation of tobacco in […]
Child labour and the tobacco industry in Pakistan
Thanks to our colleagues from The Network for Consumer Protection, Pakistan who provided the information and video in this post. (www.thenetwork.org.pk) This video shows children in northwest Pakistan preparing tobacco leaves to be sent for drying. Children as young as five years old also work in tobacco farming, where they are vulnerable to poisoning from […]