Child Labor in Tobacco Production in Bangladesh

Kaspia Sultana

Shaila Ahmed

Abstract

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), over five million children under 18 years of age are involved in some kind of laborious employment in Bangladesh.  UNICEF asserts that 93 percent of child laborers work in the informal sector, the enforcement of labor laws is impossible to be made. Almost half of working children is employed in the factories, which is deemed as the most dangerous in terms of work-related fatalities and occupational diseases due to sharp tools, dangerous machinery, and use of agro chemicals. The cultivation of tobacco uses the labor of children in Bangladesh in extremely dangerous environments, which has both immediate and long-term reparations for children’s health and psychology. This paper aims to focus on the human rights concerns related to child labor in tobacco production in Bangladesh. It also digs into the socio-economic reasons as the human rights concerns related to child labor practices in tobacco production. A human rights-based approach to decreasing and regulating child labor engagement in agriculture can make meaningful changes to improve the lives and opportunities for health, education, and economic capacity building among the children and families involved in child labor in tobacco industries in Bangladesh. This paper uses secondary data of a qualitative (walk-through survey) and quantitative studies of child labor in bidi factories that were conducted by Three Korean and two Bangladeshi researchers who visited the field site in Rangpur district of Bangladesh in May 2017. Their study searched for the cultural and social factors that led to child labor in tobacco factories and observed that children who work longer hours in factories have more physical negative symptoms and lower levels of education. The paper recommends some solutions.

Keywords: Child labor, human right, diseases, dangerous environment, education, tobacco factory, Bangladesh. 

Acknowledgement

Introduction

ILO stated, “poverty is the main cause of child labor in agriculture.” Most of the tobacco farms in Bangladesh are small factories and some are family owned. Big tobacco companies depend on small, small farms for much of their tobacco production. In most cases, they do not buy the products directly from farmers, but rather they buy it from warehouses and traders. This allows tobacco companies to use the benefits of cheap child labor without having to take direct responsibility for it.

In a developing country like Bangladesh, children in extreme poverty get indulged into to the easy demands of the bidi industry and work for cheap labor even if their health, future potential, and basic rights are being violated. Child workers in bidi industries in Bangladesh are exposed to unsafe workplace environments, and they suffer from health-related symptoms and loss of education due to work. The role of family in poverty is a basic reason for child labor, so it can be assumed that immediate eradication without economic support will be ineffective.

Bidi is a hand-rolled tobacco product that is cheap, less-processed, but more harmful, and it is smoked widely in Bangladesh. Bidi smoking is common among young adults due to its low cost. 

The process of bidi production includes the following: 

1. Cutting papers for bidi rolls.
2. Purchasing and receiving bidi papers from the factory.
3. Making empty paper rolls at home.
4. Bringing the empty rolls to the factory and filling and wrapping those rolls with tobacco powder.
5. Packing them into vinyl packets.

Methodology

Literature Review 

Multiple reports have observations that Abusive contracting arrangements in countries like Bangladesh lock tobacco farmers and their families into generational cycles of poverty and indebtedness. 

According to tobacco industry researchers Otanez and Glantz, the tobacco industry utilizes ‘greenwashed’ supply chains to make tobacco farming in developing countries appear sustainable.

Swedwatch (independent, non-profit research organization) surveyed three tobacco farming districts in Bangladesh. It found that child labor was “widespread” in farms and factories that supply BAT and its local British American Tobacco Bangladesh, by endangering their health and education.

“Girls and boys of all ages are responsible for irrigating and leveling the field. Some of them carry loads as well and bring seedlings from the bed to the field,” 

-said the study, which was conducted between July 2015 and May 2016.

“After harvesting, they break the leaves, cut the stems, and help to monitor the kiln temperature while curing.”

Swedwatch saw that children were pulled out of school to work for up to 16 hours a day during the harvest season and were also engaged in tasks that exposed them to green tobacco plants, dust from tobacco and smoke from kiln drying.

“I cannot sleep or eat regularly and that leads to other health problems. I feel weak,” “When I work in front of the kiln, my eyes burn, I feel pain in my chest and I cough a lot,”

-One boy aged 16, stated in the report, while describing the processing of tobacco leaves which involves heating them in a kiln.

The study was based on interviews with over 150 people including farmers, government officials, community leaders and activists. It was found that tobacco work had an adverse impact on schooling and future prospects because the children were pulled out of class to work.

Bhisey et al. have conducted a study about biological monitoring of bidi industry workers, which included quantifying the dust concentration, and they reported that the dust concentration in bidi factory puts workers in bidi industries at risk of lung diseases and other health problems.

Mittal et al. observed that there is high prevalence of eye problems and headache. 

In other studies, workers suffered from higher levels of cotinine and elevated mutagenic burden. Tobacco-derived products and its alkaloids are known to have carcinogenic effects, and they are also strong vasoactive compounds that can induce vasoconstriction, nerve ending damage, and accelerated atherosclerotic events.

 Previous studies explored the effects of these products on the health of bidi rollers with direct exposure to tobacco dust via nasal and cutaneous absorption. Nicotine exposure has numerous health effects, such as tachycardia, vomiting, ataxia, and even seizures. Thus, child workers in tobacco factories are exposed to different chemicals, including nicotine, via inhalation and skin contact.

Child workers are exposed to harmful chemicals noise, and dust, and proper safety measures are not followed in the factory workplaces.

 Some review articles show the health effects of hazardous exposure among child laborers and reported the symptoms of ill health, poor nutritional status and physical growth, musculoskeletal pain, and infectious diseases, like tuberculosis and HIV infections.

“The children working in the tobacco industry are trapped in a cycle of poverty. The Farming of    tobacco leaf causes grueling physical labor, often in intense heat for long hours; exposure to pesticides, chemicals, and fertilizers; and risks nicotine poisoning or green tobacco sickness which can cause headaches, nausea and vomiting.”

-Child labor in the tobacco industry, Amy Lunt June 11, 2021.

Why children are not at school but at work?

A large part of the population of Bangladesh lives in poverty. Because of this poverty, they have to engage in various activities to satisfy their hunger. And the dishonest people take the advantage of their poverty. They hire children at a much lower salary. But those innocent children are ordered to work straight 15 to 16 hours or more. They spend their whole day working from morning till night. And poverty and hunger are the reason that they choose work rather than going to school.

Child labor in agriculture as well as Industry

International law defines a child as a person who is under 18years old, Child labor is the type of “work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential, and their dignity, and that is harmful to physical and mental development.” Globally, about 152 million children are involved in child labor and 73 million children are involved in hazardous work. According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), about 108 million children, or 70% of the children involved in child labor, are concentrated primarily in agriculture. Of these, many millions are believed to be involved in tobacco growing.

 Child labor is profitable. In some cases, parents employed in low-wage agricultural jobs may be forced to have their children work because childcare is unavailable or too costly, parents may need their children to work in order to help support the family.

Some governments allow child labor in order to promote investment or boost their national economy. 

Further, international actors such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund continue to influence social and economic policies, which may inadvertently result in weak national legal structures and poor enforcement of labor laws, especially those protecting children. 

Factors Influencing Child Labor in Tobacco Production

Working on tobacco industries, these children contribute to their families’ income to make the basic living.

Tobacco companies have been successful in gaining political support and weaken opposition, especially in low-income and middle-income countries, where there is less external monitoring by civil society and where the financial contribution of these companies have a greater welcoming acceptance.

Finally, the tobacco industry and its allies have effectively lobbied, at multiple levels, against policies and regulations for protecting the workers.

Tobacco production: A Competition of Commodity 

• For lower production costs and to increase shareholder value, multinational companies move into less regulated countries, where they get extremely low prices because the producers’ use cheap child labor.
• Sharecropping is also commonly used to gain access to cheaper labor and to transfer the risk from landowners to workers.
• Tobacco companies benefit from the unfair labor practices.

Dangerous health consequences

The following are some major health consequences of working with tobacco:

• Children working on tobacco farms keep on facing a variety of hazardous exposures, including long hours, lacerations and piercings from equipment, chemicals, heavy lifting, climbing etc. 
• They sometimes also lack access to water, appropriate nutrition, and sanitation facilities.
• Children are vulnerable to the impacts of these hazardous exposures because of their physical stage of development.
• A common health risk to children working on tobacco farms is green tobacco sickness which is caused by dermal absorption of nicotine from the leaves of the tobacco plant. It is a form of nicotine poisoning and is aggravated by working in wet or damp environments. Numerous reports have highlighted stories of both children and adults, experiencing the illness.
• A recent study on farmworkers in North Carolina discovered that tobacco farmworkers had higher levels of cotinine (a nicotine metabolite) than actual smokers.
• Green tobacco sickness can cause serious sufferings such as dizziness, headaches, nausea, vomiting, dehydration, anorexia, and insomnia. 
• There are also dangers of the illness, for the exposure to chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, fumigants, and growth inhibitors without the use of appropriate personal protective equipment.
• Children who work on tobacco farms may face serious chronic health consequences, like high risk of cancer, reproductive health problems, mood disorders, and permanent neurological damage.

Human rights conventions

Tobacco production labor practices have serious issues against human rights, specifically the right to equality, the right to health, and the rights of children. Child labor on tobacco farms must be framed as part of the human rights agenda. 

There are three international treaties to assert their positions on child labor and their efforts to eliminate the practice.

• United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child

The CRC defines a child as a person under the age of 18. So, children are in need of special care and protection. The CRC asserts that children should be able to enjoy the highest standard of health.

According to Article 32, the parties to the CRC are obligated to recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that may be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development.

Numerous studies have documented those children working on tobacco farms are exploited and work in hazardous conditions that may interfere with their health, education, and well-being. 

• International Labor Organization’s Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention (C-182)

The ILO’s Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention prohibits children under the age of 18 from engaging in hazardous labor that may harm their health, safety, or morals.

• International Labor Organization’s Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention (C-184)

The ILO’s Safety and Health in Agriculture Convention proposes a series of guidelines to protect child workers and instructs countries to develop national policies to this end. 

Why child labor in Tobacco is dangerous?

Child labor in tobacco growing is dangerous because children are exposed to chemicals. Furthermore, the plant itself is poisonous. Working on tobacco fields children can get the following injuries and diseases:

• Poisoning as Green Tobacco Sickness.
• Skin rash, allergic reactions, breathing difficulties, vision impairment, chemical poisoning, liver damage, nervous diseases, and infertility for contact with chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides.
• Bone and joint deformation caused by carrying heavy loads.
• Back pains during harvest.
• Sunstrokes.
• Snakebites and mosquito-borne diseases.
• Cuts and blisters.
• Severe exhaustion and fatigue.

Furthermore, this type of work interferes with the children’s development and impedes their education and bars them from getting rid of the cycle of poverty.

Moreover, children working on tobacco fields are exploited because they are not paid for their work.

How to prevent child labor in tobacco Industries in BD? 

Some Recommendations:

• Tobacco companies must pay higher prices in order to enable farming families to live on their work without involving their children in hazardous work. 
• Basic rights of farmers and workers on tobacco plantations, have to be respected. The workers need legally legal contracts and sufficient payments.
• Tobacco farmers and workers need alternative livelihoods to tobacco.
• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates compulsory primary education which has to be enforced. 
• School meal programs are a good incentive for parents to send their children to school. 
• The governments need to promote economically viable livelihoods that would cut out child labor and help tobacco farmers find alternative sources of income. 

Possible Actions

• The children’s health and right to education are important but the immediate eradication of child labor can result in severe poverty. 
• The causes of child labor are parental compulsion, lack of social support, and childhood avocations, which cannot be solved by individual effort. 
• Comprehensive approaches must be used to resolve these issues.
• Ensuring occupational safety and health can be the first step in maintaining the basic rights of child workers. 
• Child tobacco workers should not be treated as a mere means to financial gain.
• The families and society are paying the price for these actions like loss of potential and negative health, social, and educational outcomes. 
• All children deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. 
• Current tobacco production processes pose a risk to workers’ health, especially the health of child farmworkers, and as a result it is a violation of international law for children to be working in these conditions so working conditions must improve. 
• Child labor in tobacco production is an enduring issue that needs to be resolved from a human rights perspective.

Child labor is a violation of children’s human rights. Employers, parents, governments, and international and national actors should be liable for child labor in tobacco production. A rights-based approach to reduce child labor in tobacco industry is necessary to create positive changes and improve the lives and opportunities for health, education, and income generation among children and families in BD.

2021, International Year of the Elimination of Child Labor, as well as the UN has set a target of ending child labor by 2025. 

Findings and Analysis 

To explore the causes of child labor in the tobacco industry, a walk-through study was performed by three Korean and two Bangladeshi researchers who visited the field site in Rangpur district, for 2 days in May 2017. 

There were several bidi factories in Rangpur district, and tobacco products are available in these factories. 

The steps in bidi processing varied between factories.  Some factories process harvested tobacco leaves into tobacco powder, and some process the papers. Other factories assemble bidi cigarettes, which is the final product.

Participants who had a specific reason for working, including forced by their parents or had to generate income, were classified under the forced-working group.  Some others were voluntary-working group. 

Health complaints were found such as respiratory symptoms (cough, sputum, sneezing, runny nose, dyspnea, wheezing, and sore throat), musculoskeletal symptoms (back pain and pain in the neck/shoulder, arms, and legs) with psychological symptoms (depression, anxiety, and insomnia), and neurological symptoms (headache, eyestrain, and dizziness). 

When they visited the bidi factor, it was almost impossible to open their eyes, and they experienced respiratory symptoms and skin itching due to floating dust and powders. 

The area where tobacco powder is filled inside the paper roll was dusty and also a sharp smell was in the air. 

Children were constantly exposed to tobacco via inhalation and direct skin contact with tobacco powder and its alkaloids, including nicotine. 

Conclusion            

Child labor is not only affecting under-developed and developing countries, but developed countries are also facing this though the rate is comparatively very less. The main causes of child labor include poverty, unemployment, excess population & urbanization. Child labor not only causes damage a child’s physical and mental health but also keeps him/her deprived of his/her basic rights to education, development, and freedom.

Children are more prone to and are at more risk than adults because of rapid skeletal growth, organ and tissues development, greater risk of hearing loss, greater need for food and rest, higher chemical absorption rates, smaller size and lower heat tolerance due to their physiological and immunological countenance.

A multi-disciplinary approach involving specialists from medical, toxicological, environmental, psychological and socio-anthropological fields shall produce integral information and approach on various aspects of child development to prepare a better policy for child labor.

There is urgent need of intensive focus and research along with political and practical decisions to improve the conditions of working children. Government, workers, employers and the community must share the responsibility for controlling the special psychological risk factors that child faces. Considering the present situation, there is urgent need of social, political and technological intervention, good quality research, proper legislation and law, a comprehensive policy, which can be implemented, for better planning and management of child labor issues to improve the condition of working children.

The Government of India has implemented the Child Labor Act in 1986 that outlaws child labor in certain areas and sets the minimum age of employment at fourteen. This Act falls short of making all child labor illegal and fails to meet the ILO guideline concerning the minimum age of employment set at fifteen years of age. Though policies are in place that could potentially reduce the incidence of child labor, enforcement is a problem. If child labor is to be eradicated in India, the government and those responsible for enforcement need to start doing their jobs. Policies can and will be developed concerning child labor, but without enforcement they are all useless. Eradicating poverty, how- ever, is only the first step on the road to eliminate child labor.

Reference 

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• K. Basu and Z. Tzannatos, “The global child labor problem: What do we know and what can we do?” World Bank Economic Review 17/2 (2003), pp. 147–173.

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