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AT RISK: Children can work for as little as 1p an hour

AN INVESTIGATION has found that children in Malawi who are forced to work as tobacco pickers are exposed to nicotine poisoning equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day.

Child workers, some as young as five, are suffering severe health problems from a daily skin absorption of up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine, according to international children’s organisation Plan.

Plan claims that an estimated 78,000 children work on tobacco estates for as little as 1p an hour for up to 12 hours a day.

Forty-four children from tobacco farms in three different districts were asked by the organisation to take part in a series of workshops.

They found that the children suffered from common symptoms of green tobacco sickness (GTS), or nicotine poisoning, including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness.

GTS is a common side affect of workers who come into contact with tobacco leaves and absorb nicotine through their skin, particularly when harvesting.

The long-term effects are not known but some experts believe that it could seriously impair children’s development.

Neal Benowitz, professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at California University in San Francisco told the Guardian:

“The brain of a child or adolescent is particularly vulnerable to adverse neurobehavioral effects of nicotine exposure.”

Plan has called on the Malawian government to enforce tougher child labour and protection laws to provide safer, working conditions for those children who have to work.

“This research shows that tobacco estates are exploiting and abusing children who have a right to a safe working environment. Plan is calling for better enforcement of child labour laws and harsher punishments for employers who break them,” said Plan Malawi’s child rights adviser, Macdonald Mumba.

“These children are risking their health for 11p a day.”

Published: 31 August 2009
Issue: 1387

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