Children and adults working in the country’s tobacco farms face serious health risks as well as labor abuses, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released today has noted.
The report titled, “A Bitter Harvest: Child Labor and Human Rights Abuses on Tobacco Farms in Zimbabwe,” documents how children work in hazardous conditions, performing tasks that threaten their health and safety or interfere with their education.
A farmworker stands near a tobacco field on a farm east of Harare, Zimbabwe. © 2017 REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko
Children’s Rights researcher at HRW, Margret Wurth told a media briefing that the findings are far from satisfactory and the government needs to urgently put mechanisms in place to ensure that the practice ends.
“Zimbabwe’s government needs to take urgent steps to protect tobacco workers. Companies sourcing tobacco from Zimbabwe should ensure that they are not buying a crop produced by child workers sacrificing their health and education.”
Zimbabwean law sets 16 years as the minimum age for employment and prohibits children under 18 from performing hazardous work, but does not specifically ban children from handling tobacco.
The report says the 14 child workers interviewed by HRW, and most of the adults said they had experienced at least one symptom consistent with acute nicotine poisoning, nausea, vomiting, headaches, or dizziness while handling tobacco.
However, an official from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB), Ishemunyoro Moyo said although they have taken note of the findings of the report, they have not received reports of child labor in farms.
“We do not have cases of child labor that have come before us. What we need to understand though is the definition of child labor in this context because there are cases where children will be helping out by doing house chores, that cannot be classified as child labor,” said Moyo, TIMB Public Relations and Communications Manager.
He dismissed reports of child farmer saying they are not allowed, by law, to register farmer below the age of 18 as this is a violation of labor laws.
Workers sort dried tobacco leaves on a farm outside of Harare, Zimbabwe. © 2017 Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters.
“We have stakeholders that we work with that monitor the production of tobacco within the farms and we also teach farmers on good agronomic practices. We have been highlighting issues to do with child labour. We also work with law enforcement agencies that help us to monitor,” said Moyo.
According to the Human Rights Watch report, some workers on large-scale farms worked excessive hours without overtime compensation, or that their wages were withheld for weeks or months, in violation of Zimbabwean labor law and regulations.
Under human rights norms, companies buying tobacco from Zimbabwe have a responsibility to ensure that their business operations do not contribute to child labor and other human rights.
Tobacco is Zimbabwe’s most valuable export, generating US$933.7 million in 2016.
