[Civsoc-mw] Guardian UK article. today.

[cammack at mweb.co.za]

BAT faces landmark legal case over Malawi families' poverty wages

 

Exclusive: Lawyers seeking compensation in UK for child labourers and their
parents

 

    The children labouring in Malawi’s fields for British American Tobacco

 

Exploitation in focus is supported by

Humanity United

About this content

 

Sarah Boseley

 

Thu 31 Oct 2019 16.50 GMT

Last modified on Fri 1 Nov 2019 00.55 GMT

 

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A child and adult working on a tobacco field in Malawi

Lawyers are seeking compensation for child labourers and their parents in
the high court in London. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

 

Human rights lawyers are preparing to bring a landmark case against British
American Tobacco on behalf of hundreds of children and their families forced
by poverty wages to work in conditions of gruelling hard labour in the
fields of Malawi.

 

Leigh Day’s lawyers are seeking compensation for more than 350 child
labourers and their parents in the high court in London, arguing that the
British company is guilty of “unjust enrichment”. Leigh Day says it
anticipates the number of child labourer claimants to rise as high as
15,000. While BAT claims it has told farmers not to use their children as
unpaid labour, the lawyers say the families cannot afford to work their
fields otherwise, because they receive so little money for their crop.

The children labouring in Malawi's fields for British American Tobacco

Read more

 

The case, potentially one of the biggest that human rights lawyers have ever
brought, could transform the lives of children in poor countries who are
forced to work to survive not only in tobacco but also in other industries
such as the garment trade.

 

It follows exposure of the scale and brutal reality of child labour in the
tobacco fields by the Guardian last year, which Martyn Day, a founding
partner and head of the firm, said had provoked them to act. “If it hadn’t
been for the Guardian, this case would not be happening,” he said.

 

Day added: “It is totally depressing that one of the largest companies in
the world, and certainly one of the largest British companies, is involved
in an area where the employment of children is such a fundamental part of
what happens. It has been going on for decades, and as a result of all of
that the farmers of Malawi are caught in a groundhog day, where one
generation after another is having to farm tobacco and is caught in a
poverty trap.”

 

Many of the families are from Phalombe, one of the poorest regions in the
south of the country. They are recruited to tobacco farms in the north with
the promise of food, accommodation and a lump sum in cash for their crop.
Their accommodation is a straw hut they must build themselves; the food is a
monthly sack of maize, which is insufficient to feed the family and which is
stopped before their tenancy ends. The lump sum they are paid at the end of
the season dwindles often to less than half what is offered after deductions
for tools and loans that the families have to take out to pay for
essentials.

People in a tobacco farming region

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According to the letter of claim, last season most of the claimants earned
no more than £100 to £200 for 10 months’ work for a family of five.
Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

 

According to the letter of claim, seen by the Guardian, last season most
claimants earned no more than £100 to £200 for 10 months’ work for a family
of five. Their lawyers say the work amounts to forced or bonded labour
because they are misled when recruited, are afraid to leave and quickly get
into debt.

 

Children as young as three are involved in tobacco farming, the letter of
claim says, often during harvest when the work can be especially hazardous.
Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of toxic pesticides,
fertiliser and green tobacco sickness, from nicotine absorption while
handling the leaves. Symptoms include breathing difficulties, cramps and
vomiting.

 

Some children go to school, as the law requires, but often only
sporadically. Almost all work from sunrise in the fields before school and
then when they get home, as well as through the weekend. At harvest time,
classrooms empty.

 

BAT is one of the most profitable companies in the world, making an
operating profit last year of £9.3bn on sales of £24.5bn. Like other big
tobacco companies, it has distanced itself from the farmers by commissioning
a separate company to buy a stipulated amount of tobacco leaf each year.
Alliance One signs contracts with land-owning farmers in Malawi, who then
recruit tenant farmer families to work the fields.

 

The lawyers, who have sent BAT the letter of claim and say they expect to
issue proceedings this year, argue that responsibility for the conditions of
the tenant families rests ultimately with BAT, which decides the price it
will pay for tobacco leaf. In April, Leigh Day won a watershed case against
Vedanta, a British mining company, which the high court held responsible for
the actions of its subsidiary in polluting farmland in Zambia. That case
opened the way to hold other British companies responsible for harm caused
by the actions of those who work for them overseas.

 

A report in 2011 estimated there were 1.3 million children under the age of
14 working in tobacco around the world. In 2017, an International Labour
Organisation report said child labour in tobacco was on the increase and
“rampant”.

 

Day said: “If we are successful in Malawi, I would very much hope it would
persuade BAT and the other tobacco companies that use very similar models to
change those models and make sure people are properly compensated for the
work and totally discourage children from working so they can go to school.”

 

BAT said in a statement that it took the issue of child labour very
seriously and “strongly agrees that children must never be exploited,
exposed to danger or denied an education”.

 

Simon Cleverly, the group head of corporate affairs, said BAT’s core
policies “specifically state that we do not condone forced, bonded or
involuntary labour; and that we do not condone or employ child labour, and
seek to ensure that the welfare, health and safety of children are paramount
at all times”.

 

He said BAT made it clear to contract farmers and suppliers that
exploitative child labour and forced and bonded labour would not be
tolerated.

 

BAT leaf operations and contracted suppliers were required to participate in
the industry-wide sustainable tobacco programme, he said, which was aligned
with United Nations standards, including on child labour and income for farm
workers.

 

“As we have received a letter of claim relating to these allegations, it
would be inappropriate for us to provide further comment at this time,”
Cleverly said.


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