29 May 2014. PenzaNews. International non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch calls the US authorities to ban hazardous child labor on tobacco farms, says a report titled “Tobacco’s Hidden Children: Hazardous Child Labor in United States Tobacco Farming” which was published in the middle of May 2014.

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The authors of the document mentioned that in most cases, employers may not hire children under 14, and 14 and 15-year-olds may only work in certain jobs and for a limited number of hours a day. However, in agriculture, and tobacco farming in particular, underage workers as young as 12 can legally be hired with parental permission, and with no work-hour and hazardous labor restrictions present, which is inconsistent with international conventions on the rights of children.

“In the US, it is illegal for children under 18 to buy cigarettes or other tobacco products. However, US law fails to recognize the risks to children of working in tobacco farming. It also does not provide the same protections to children working in agriculture as it does to children working in all other sectors,” says the report.

“The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Convention, which the US has ratified, obligates countries to prohibit certain types of work for children under age 18 as a matter of urgency, including work that is likely to jeopardize children’s physical or mental health, safety or morals,” the document emphasizes.

According to the data available, the report is based on the interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch in May-October 2013 with more than 140 children aged from 7 to 17 who worked in the US states of North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where 90% of American tobacco is grown in 2012 or 2013. Most of the interviewed underage workers are children of Hispanic immigrants, though they themselves are considered US citizens. Typically, they have to work on tobacco farms to help their families financially by earning money for necessities or clothes, shoes and school supplies.

The children are assigned a wide range of tasks: planting seedlings, weeding, “topping” and “suckling” plants, cutting them with special knives and loading the plants onto wooden sticks with sharp metal points, carrying and hanging up the loaded sticks, and stripping and sorting dried tobacco.

According to them, the work is done in high heat. Minors have to be in the field for 10 to 12, sometimes up to 16 hours a day. In addition to that, many children say their employers do not provide them with drinking water and not let them rest in the shade. Several children reported working in deep mud in bare feet or only wearing socks.

“Nearly all children interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that their employers did not provide health education, safety training, or personal protective equipment,” says the report.

The document points out that while most employers allowed the underage workers two to three breaks per day, sometimes the children were prohibited to take breaks even in high heat. The human rights activists describe an example of a 18-year-old tobacco worker from Kentucky state who had to work from 6:00 to 18:00 besides a five-minute break and up to half an hour for lunch.

According to the activists, minors also have to work using dangerous tools and machinery and climb into several-stories-tall curing barns, which presents high risks of injury.

“Many children described straining their backs and taxing their muscles while lifting heavy loads and performing repetitive motions, including working bent over at the waist, twisting their wrists to top tobacco plants, crawling on hands and knees, or reaching above their heads for extended periods of time,” the publication emphasizes.

The report also gives information about a 16-year-old child tobacco worker who worked in Tennessee in 2012, injured himself with a tobacco knife on his first workday and had to go to the hospital on his own because he could not get necessary help on the farm.

The human rights activists point out that high risks of industrial trauma among US underage workers is typical not only for tobacco farming but for American agricultural industry as a whole.

“Federal data on fatal occupational injuries indicate that agriculture is the most dangerous industry open to young workers. In 2012, two-thirds of children under the age of 18 who died from occupational injuries were agricultural workers, and there were more than 1,800 nonfatal injuries to children under 18 working on US farms,” the publication says.

However, according to the report, these are not the only dangers that the underage workers are exposed to. Direct contact with tobacco plants and its wet leaves in particular may lead to acute nicotine poisoning, also known as Green Tobacco Sickness, which is typical for the industry. The most common symptoms of the sickness that occurs due to absorbing nicotine through the skin are dizziness, headaches, nausea and vomiting.

As pointed out in the document, non-smoking tobacco workers have the same level of nicotine in their bodies as smokers, which poses a threat to child development.

“Though the long-term effects of nicotine absorption through the skin are unknown, public health research on smoking indicates that nicotine exposure during adolescence may have long-term adverse consequences for brain development,” the human rights activists emphasize.

Another threat for children’s health is pesticides used in the tobacco fields. Many underaged workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch mentioned tractors spraying toxic chemicals in the fields in which they were working or which they could see nearby. They also described the smell and feel of the chemical spray and mentioned such consequences of contact with them as burning eyes and noses, itchy skin, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, shortness of breath, redness of their mouths, and headache.

According to public health research, pesticides may cause such long-term and chronic illnesses as respiratory problems, cancer, neurological deficits and reproductive health problems.

In addition to that, as mentioned in the report, child labor associated with many health hazards is badly-paid. Most interviewed children say they were paid the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour for their work on tobacco farms, or a fixed rate based on the quantity of tobacco they harvested or hung in barns.

“Some children reported problems with wages including earning less than minimum wage for hourly work, deductions by the contractor or grower for drinking water or for reasons that were not explained to them,” the document says.

During preparation of the report, Human Rights Watch specialists made attempts to contact 10 corporations that received tobacco from the aforementioned American states and obtain information on their child labor policies.

“Eight of these companies manufacture tobacco products (Altria Group, British American Tobacco, China National Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Group, Japan Tobacco Group, Lorillard, Philip Morris International, and Reynolds American), and two are leaf merchant companies (Alliance One International and Universal Corporation),” the document elaborates.

According to the human rights activists, only China National Tobacco did not respond and ignored multiple attempts to plan a meeting with company executives. The remaining 9 companies expressed concern about child labor in their production or on the farms owned by the companies or entrepreneurs, and stated that they took a series of measures to prohibit such practices in their supply chains.

However, according to the report, only some corporations have explicit child labor policies in place.

“Several companies stated that in their US operations they required tobacco growers with whom they contract to comply with US law, including laws on child labor, which, as noted above, do not afford sufficient protections for children,” the document emphasizes.

According to Human Rights Watch activists, the current situation requires immediate action. In their opinion, the US government must undertake series of steps to restrict underage labor in the industry in question in any form, and provide children in agricultural industry the same level of protection as in any other cases.

At the same time, in human rights activists’ opinion, tobacco products manufacturers must ban child labor in their supply chains and organize effective internal and third-party monitoring of this situation.

“Based on our findings set out in this report, Human Rights Watch believes that no child under age 18 should be permitted to perform work in which they come into direct contact with tobacco in any form, including plants of any size or dried tobacco leaves, due to the inherent health risks posed by nicotine and the pesticides applied to the crop. The US government, US Congress, and tobacco manufacturing and tobacco leaf supply companies should all take urgent steps to progressively remove children from such tasks in tobacco farming,” the report emphasizes.