Summary
"I hope that my children will go back to school, and become better people, because they can’t do that working in tobacco farming. Tobacco growing is a very difficult field. It makes one grow old before their time." - Anne, 36-year-old hired tobacco worker and mother of three child tobacco workers, ages 11, 13, and 15, December 2016
In November 2017, President Robert Mugabe’s 37-year rule of Zimbabwe came to an end on the back of military intervention, and Emmerson Mnangagwa, his former deputy, took office as the country’s new president. In an inauguration address delivered in Harare on November 24, 2017, Mnangagwa outlined his plans to help the country’s troubled economy recover, saying, “Our economic policy will be predicated on our agriculture, which is the mainstay.” He added, “Our quest for economic development must be premised on our timeless goal to establish and sustain a just and equitable society firmly based on our historical, cultural and social experience, as well as on our aspirations for better lives for all our people.”
Tobacco farming is a pillar of Zimbabwe’s economy. Tobacco is the country’s most valuable export commodity—generating US$933.7 million in 2016—and the crop is particularly significant to Zimbabwean authorities’ efforts to revive the economy. However, Human Rights Watch research in 2016 and 2017 into conditions on tobacco farms in Zimbabwe revealed an industry tainted by child labor and confronted by other serious human rights problems as well. Zimbabwean authorities and tobacco companies should take urgent steps to address child labor and other human rights abuses that may be undermining the sector’s contributions to economic growth and improved livelihoods.
In March 2017, Human Rights Watch met Panashe, a 50-year-old small-scale tobacco farmer in Manicaland, and one of 125 people involved in tobacco production interviewed for this report. Panashe supported his family with earnings from cultivating a half hectare of tobacco. In 2016, he did not make any profit. “Last year, we had the problem of hail, and we failed to get anything,” he said. Without any earnings from the previous season, Panashe said he was unable to pay workers to help on his farm: “We face the problem of labor. In tobacco, you cannot work alone…. I cannot manage to hire workers because I don’t have anything.” As a result, he relied on help from his 16-year-old daughter and 12-year-old niece. “They do everything,” he said. “They are overworked.”
Panashe described how he and his wife often felt sick while working in tobacco farming, suffering headaches and dizziness—both symptoms consistent with acute nicotine poisoning, which happens when workers absorb nicotine through their skin while handling tobacco plants. No one had ever informed Panashe or his family about nicotine poisoning, or how to prevent and treat it, even though he and his wife both suffered symptoms frequently. “I haven’t ever heard about it,” he said. “I haven’t heard of anyone knowing about this.” He also said he handled pesticides without adequate protective equipment, and sometimes suffered chest pain and blurred vision. “It really does affect us,” he said.
This report—based on extensive field research and interviews with 64 small-scale tobacco farmers like Panashe, as well as 61 hired workers on tobacco farms in the largest tobacco-growing provinces in Zimbabwe—found several serious human rights problems in the tobacco sector. Many children under 18 work in hazardous conditions on tobacco farms in Zimbabwe, often performing tasks that threaten their health and safety or interfere with their education. Adults involved in tobacco production—both small-scale farmers and hired workers—face serious health and safety risks, but the government and tobacco companies are failing to ensure that workers have sufficient information, training, and equipment to protect themselves. Hired workers on some large-scale tobacco farms said they were pushed to work excessive hours without overtime compensation, denied their wages, and forced to go weeks or months without pay.
Zimbabwe is among the top tobacco producers in the world. Tobacco production is central to the country’s economy, and tens of thousands of small-scale farmers, and thousands of hired workers on tobacco farms, rely on tobacco cultivation for their livelihoods. Yet, the government of Zimbabwe is failing to meet its international human rights obligations to protect children’s rights and is also failing to tackle other workers’ rights abuses in the tobacco sector. As President Mnangagwa’s administration strives to promote Zimbabwe’s economic growth, authorities should address human abuses faced by the small-scale farmers and hired workers sustaining the tobacco industry.
Tobacco companies also have an important role in respecting human rights in Zimbabwe’s tobacco sector. Many major global tobacco product manufacturers, such as British American Tobacco, and leaf merchant companies like Alliance One International and Universal Leaf Tobacco who supply to other major manufacturers, purchase tobacco in Zimbabwe. Human Rights Watch contacted these companies and 28 others regarding human rights concerns in tobacco farming in Zimbabwe and requested information about the policies and systems companies have in place to identify, prevent, and address human rights abuses in their supply chains.
Most companies, including nearly all of the major global tobacco companies, said they have detailed human rights due diligence policies in place and gave overviews of their efforts to conduct training on and monitoring of those policies in Zimbabwe. Human Rights Watch’s research, however, found that small-scale farmers and hired workers on some large-scale tobacco farms faced abuses that these policies intend to prevent and remedy. Our research suggests companies are generally not doing enough to prevent and address human rights abuses throughout the supply chain.
Companies should review their human rights policies to ensure training and communication of standards to all farmers and workers, including in remote areas, using clear, straightforward materials and methods; ensure all workers and farmers are provided written contracts, with labor requirements and protections clearly articulated, and receive copies of these contracts; and that company representatives, especially field staff visiting farms, are adequately trained and held accountable for communicating standards to farmers and workers and implementing human rights policies throughout the supply chain.
Understanding the effectiveness of company policies, implementation, and monitoring is hindered by the fact that none of the companies that Human Rights Watch contacted for this report have publicly disclosed sufficient and detailed information about how they apply their policies to their supply chain, how they monitor to prevent or address problems, or how they evaluate their efforts to address human rights concerns in their supply chains. Transparency is a crucial element of effective human rights due diligence and facilitates external assessments of the effectiveness of companies’ human rights policies.
With respect to child labor, most tobacco companies that Human Rights Watch contacted now have policies prohibiting children from performing most tasks in which they have direct contact with green tobacco, a significant step toward protecting children from health hazards such as nicotine poisoning. However, none of the companies contacted for this report prohibit children from all contact with tobacco, including handling dried tobacco, which Human Rights Watch research in Zimbabwe and other countries has linked to respiratory symptoms, such as coughing, sneezing, difficulty breathing, or tightness in the chest, and other adverse health impacts on children. Human Rights Watch calls on all companies and the government of Zimbabwe, to prohibit children from any work involving contact with tobacco, as a policy that is both maximally protective and the most straightforward for companies to communicate, implement, and monitor throughout the supply chain.
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Farmers have cultivated tobacco in Zimbabwe for more than a century. Though the volume of production fluctuates from year to year based on economic and political factors and weather, in 2016, the last year for which data is available, Zimbabwe was the world’s sixth-largest producer of tobacco.
Poverty in Zimbabwe is widespread, particularly in rural areas. In 2011, nearly three-quarters of the population lived below the national poverty line. A cash shortage in recent years has crippled the economy, leading the nation’s Central Bank to impose limits on cash withdrawals and to introduce a form of local currency—bond notes—triggering widespread fears of inflation and further economic deterioration.
The controversial “fast track” land reform program introduced in 2000 by the ruling party—the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)—has radically altered the nature of tobacco production in Zimbabwe. Under the program, the government seized thousands of large-scale commercial farms owned by white farmers and redistributed plots of land, including many that were given to landless black Zimbabweans. Since the start of the fast track land reform process, the number of active tobacco growers in Zimbabwe increased dramatically, from around 8,500 growers in 2000, to more than 73,000 in 2016, at least in part due to the government subdividing and redistributing some large farms. Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) reports that 99 percent of tobacco is grown in one of four provinces: Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, and Manicaland.
Child Labor in Tobacco Farming
Human Rights Watch interviewed 14 child tobacco workers, ages 12 to 17, as well as 11 young adults, ages 18 to 22, who started working in tobacco farming as children. In addition, many other interviewees told Human Rights Watch that children work on tobacco farms in Zimbabwe. More than half of the 64 small-scale farmers interviewed for this report said that children under 18 worked on their tobacco farms—either their own children or family members, or children they hired to work on their farms. About half of the hired adult tobacco workers we interviewed said children under 18 worked with them, either also as hired workers, or informally assisting their parents, who were hired workers. Primary and secondary school teachers from tobacco-growing regions described to Human Rights Watch how children’s participation in tobacco farming contributed to absenteeism and made it difficult for their students to keep up with schoolwork.
In all of the provinces where Human Rights Watch conducted research, regardless of the size of farms or the nature of the work, interviewees explained that children work on tobacco farms in Zimbabwe due to poverty.
Zimbabwean law sets 16 as the minimum age for children to work in any sector and prohibits children under 18 from performing hazardous work. A 2001 amendment to the Children’s Act specifies several types of work that are considered hazardous work for children, including any work, “which is likely to jeopardise or interfere with the education of that child or young person” and any work “involving contact with any hazardous substance, article or process.” However, Zimbabwean law and regulations do not specifically prohibit children from handling tobacco.
Hazardous Work
Human Rights Watch found that work in tobacco farming in Zimbabwe poses significant risks to children’s health and safety, consistent with our findings in Kazakhstan, the United States, and Indonesia. Children working on tobacco farms in Zimbabwe are exposed to nicotine and toxic pesticides. They sometimes work very long hours handling green or dried tobacco leaves. The children interviewed for this report described sickness while working in tobacco farming, including specific symptoms associated with acute nicotine poisoning and pesticide exposure.
All of the child workers interviewed for this report said they had experienced at least one symptom consistent with acute nicotine poisoning—nausea, vomiting, headaches, or dizziness—while handling tobacco. For example, Davidzo, 15, started working on a neighbor’s tobacco farm with his grandmother when he was 14. He said he vomited the first time he worked with the crop in 2015. “The first day I started working in tobacco, that’s when I vomited. I was feeling that I didn’t have power,” he said describing how his body felt weak. Though he only vomited once, Davidzo said he often gets headaches while working with tobacco, especially when he carries the harvested leaves. “I started to feel like I was spinning,” he said. “Since I started this [work], I always feel headaches and I feel dizzy. I feel like I don’t have the power to do anything.”
Children are particularly vulnerable to nicotine poisoning because of their size, and because they are less likely than adults to have developed a tolerance to nicotine. The long-term effects of nicotine absorption through the skin have not been studied, but public health research on smoking suggests that nicotine exposure during childhood and adolescence may have lasting consequences on brain development.
In addition, many of the child tobacco workers interviewed for this report said they were exposed to pesticides while working on tobacco farms. Some children mixed, handled, or applied pesticides directly. Others were exposed when pesticides were applied to areas close to where they were working, or by re-entering fields that had been very recently sprayed. Many children reported immediate illness after having contact with pesticides.
Sixteen-year-old Tanaka described how he got sick after he poured a chemical used to help color the tobacco leaves into a backpack sprayer and applied it to the crop. “The smell affects me,” he said. “It stays with me and only clears after I take a bath. It causes nausea, and you lose your appetite.” He said he had experienced the feeling many times, most recently three days prior to his interview with Human Rights Watch. He said he wore overalls and a coat, but he had no gloves and nothing to cover his nose and mouth.
Rufaro and Zendaya, both 15, worked together on a tobacco farm in Mashonaland Central. Both girls said they had vomited after entering fields that had just been sprayed. “[It happens] when they spray the chemicals. It’s because of the smell. It’s so bad,” said Zendaya. “Most of the people, they vomit,” added Rufaro. “We were working in fields that had been sprayed. We were picking worms [off of the leaves]. They spray first, and then the worms come out, and then we go [into the field] and get them. Every time they spray, people go home sick [after work].”
Pesticide exposure has been associated with long-term and chronic health effects including respiratory problems, cancer, depression, neurologic deficits, and reproductive health problems. Children are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of toxic exposures as their brains and bodies are still developing.
Several children also reported respiratory symptoms while working with dried tobacco, such as coughing, sneezing, difficulty breathing, or tightness in the chest. Fungai, 16, worked on five tobacco farms in Mashonaland Central, where he lived with his mother and two older siblings. He said he suffered respiratory symptoms while grading dried tobacco: “During grading, you’re sneezing and having trouble breathing. It’s the smell of the tobacco. Once it hits you it’s like you’ve been burned.”
Child Labor and Education
Zimbabwe has committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which sets a target for all countries to offer all children free, equitable, and quality primary and secondary education by 2030. The goals are also in line with the country’s international and regional human rights obligations to realize the right to primary and secondary education for all. While Zimbabwe’s constitution requires the government to promote “free and compulsory basic education for children,” many families have to pay fees or levies for their children to go to public schools. Children are only required to attend school through age 12, even though the minimum age to begin working is 16. The compulsory education age is low relative to many other countries in the African Union, and Human Rights Watch research suggests that children in Zimbabwe face barriers to completing their compulsory education and accessing secondary school.
Interviewees told Human Rights Watch that primary school fees were typically $10 to $15 per term, and secondary school fees were higher—sometimes close to $150 for the first term, and $35 to $50 for subsequent terms. Parents, children, teachers, and worker advocates interviewed for this report said that school fees posed a barrier to children’s education, and many interviewees said the fees became prohibitively expensive for their families, particularly in secondary school. Some interviewees said school administrators sent children home, or refused to provide end-of-year exam results if school fees were unpaid. Interviewees also described how indirect educational costs for things like books and uniforms posed a challenge for many families.
It was beyond the scope of this report to investigate barriers in access to primary and secondary education across all sectors, as the focus of our research was child labor and human rights abuses on tobacco farms. In research in other countries, Human Rights Watch has found that school fees pose a barrier to education for many children. In Zimbabwe, the difficulties accessing education because of school fees likely affect many low-income families outside of the tobacco sector, though our research suggests children in small-scale tobacco farming families may face particular risks continuing their education, due to the nature of their financial cycles. Many small-scale tobacco farmers told Human Rights Watch that they received earnings only during one part of the year after selling tobacco, and therefore often struggled to pay school fees at the start of the academic term beginning in January. Small-scale farmers in other types of agricultural production may face similar challenges due to their financial cycles.
Teachers in tobacco growing regions told Human Rights Watch that their students were often absent during the tobacco growing season, particularly during the labor-intensive periods of planting and harvesting, making it difficult for them to keep up with their school work. Joseph, a grade 5 teacher in Mashonaland West, said one-quarter of his 43 students worked on tobacco farms. “It causes a lot of absenteeism,” he said. “You find out of 63 days of the term, a child is coming 15 to 24 days only,” he said.
Northern Tobacco, in its 2017 monitoring of one tobacco-growing region from which it sources in Zimbabwe, confirmed high rates of absenteeism due to farmers’ difficulty paying school fees and risks of child labor during the most labor-intensive tobacco farming periods.
Some children missed school to work for hire on tobacco farms to raise money for their school fees. For example, Davidzo, a 15-year-old boy in Mashonaland Central, missed 15 days of class to work in tobacco farming. He said, “I had to absent myself from school because I needed school fees.” When he returned to school, he was punished by his teachers. “I was beaten…. I was so disappointed because I was trying to make an effort to work to raise my school fees. I thought I was doing good for myself.” Davidzo said he could not continue to secondary school due to the recurring challenge of paying school fees, so he dropped out.
Other interviewees said children missed school to help their own families with tobacco farming tasks. Some children and young adults interviewed for this report had never attended school or had dropped out before completing their desired level of education to work in tobacco farming. In most of these cases, interviewees said families were unable to cover the cost of their school fees. “I stopped [school] at grade 6,” said, Farai, a 14-year-old tobacco worker in Mashonaland Central. “We couldn’t afford to pay the fees. It was very painful.”
Health and Safety Risks for Adult Tobacco Workers
Like the child workers we interviewed, adult tobacco workers—both small-scale farmers and hired workers on farms of various sizes—were exposed to nicotine and toxic pesticides while working, and many suffered health effects that they attributed to their work on tobacco farms. Interviewees reported that neither government officials nor company representatives had provided them with adequate information about nicotine poisoning and pesticide exposure, or with sufficient training to protect themselves. They also said that they were not provided with, and often lacked the means to procure equipment necessary to protect themselves.
Almost none of the small-scale farmers or hired workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch knew about acute nicotine poisoning, or Green Tobacco Sickness (GTS), or how to protect themselves from it. However, most had experienced symptoms consistent with nicotine poisoning while working, including nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, headaches, and dizziness. Even the contract farmers interviewed for this report, who regularly met with representatives of tobacco companies, had very little, if any, information about nicotine poisoning.
For example, Admire, a 43-year-old tobacco farmer from Manicaland, had sold tobacco through a contract with a tobacco company for seven years, yet he said no one from the company ever informed him about GTS, even though he and most of his family members had suffered symptoms consistent with nicotine poisoning. Admire said his 17-year-old son had even vomited while handling tobacco. “When we’re hanging tobacco, we normally feel weak or vomit, and get a headache and dizziness,” he said. “We have never heard that kind of education,” he said. “You fall sick, but you don't know what it is.”
Nearly all small-scale farmers and many hired farmworkers interviewed for this report said they handled toxic chemicals while working on tobacco farms. While most small-scale farmers and hired farmworkers had some understanding that pesticides could be dangerous, many had not received comprehensive education or training about how to protect themselves and other workers from exposure. Many interviewees handled chemicals without any protective equipment, or with improper or incomplete protection. Interviewees reported illness after coming into contact with toxic chemicals, including nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, stomach pain, headaches, dizziness, skin irritation (particularly of the face), chest pain, blurred vision, eye irritation, respiratory irritation, and other symptoms. Zimbabwean regulations require employers to ensure that workers handling hazardous substances, including pesticides, are informed about the risks of the work, and provided with proper protective equipment.
Union organizers in multiple provinces told Human Rights Watch that the lack of protective equipment was a chief concern among the workers on farms they served. At the time of writing, stakeholders were working to develop a regulation on health and safety in the agricultural sector. In the absence of this regulation, the legal and regulatory framework has lacked comprehensive safety and health protections for agricultural workers, leaving them particularly vulnerable to occupational illnesses and injuries.
Labor Rights Abuses
Human Rights Watch documented serious labor rights abuses on large-scale tobacco farms, including excessive working hours without overtime compensation and late or non-payment of wages.
Many of the hired workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch, including some children, said employers pressured them to work past their designated working hours without additional compensation. Some workers said they were asked to work on Sundays, their designated rest days, without overtime compensation or compensatory time off (the ability to take another day to rest). While some workers said overtime work was voluntary, others said they feared reprisals for refusing to work overtime, citing examples of fellow employees who had been dismissed from work for several days, or permanently, after declining to work overtime.
Many workers reported that employers delayed payments to workers, from a few days up to weeks or months. On some farms, when employers delayed wage payments, they allowed employees to buy basic foodstuffs and household goods on credit in employer-owned shops, sometimes at inflated prices. The money spent in these shops was then deducted from their wages. In the absence of wages, several workers explained that they had no choice but to acquire essential items through their employers. Some workers said they were paid less than they were owed or promised, without explanation.
In many cases, the incidents described to Human Rights Watch appear to constitute violations of Zimbabwean labor law and regulations. The 2014 collective bargaining agreement for the agricultural industry stipulates that agricultural workers should not exceed 208 hours of work per month, and requires employers to pay “double the employee’s current wage” for overtime worked on a day off, and “one and a half times the employee’s current wage for time worked in excess of the ordinary monthly hours of work.” The agreement requires employers to provide wages in cash within two to four days of the end of the working period (week or month, respectively).
Other Human Rights Problems
Very few of the hired workers on small or large-scale farms who were interviewed for this report said they had ever seen a labor inspector or other government official visit their workplace to inspect working conditions. Most workers said that as far as they knew, union organizers were the only people to inspect conditions at their workplaces and speak with them about grievances. In response to Human Rights Watch’s request for information regarding labor inspection in the agricultural sector, the Zimbabwean government stated that it has 120 labor inspectors, and carried out 2,500 labor inspections in all sectors between 2015 and early 2018. It reported that “no record of any violations were received,” though it reported that a 2014 labor force survey found the prevalence of child labor across sectors is around 4.6 percent. According to the government’s response, there were “no cases of child labour in the tobacco sector which the government is aware of.”
According to the US Department of Labor (DOL), the Zimbabwean government carried out 866 labor inspections at worksites in 2016 and documented 436 child labor violations in all sectors that year. DOL maintained that the Zimbabwean government lacked sufficient labor inspectors to enforce labor laws effectively.
Among the small-scale contract farmers interviewed for this report, many reported that they did not receive copies of the contracts they signed with tobacco companies, leaving them vulnerable to risks if a company was to modify the terms of a contract unilaterally, or deny the existence of a contractual relationship. Many farmers told Human Rights Watch that only company representatives retained a copy of the contract agreements. Human Rights Watch did not document any instances of companies unilaterally modifying the terms of a contract or denying the existence of a contract.
Many farmers said there were provisions of the contract that they did not understand or that company representatives did not explain to them. Some farmers said they felt rushed during the contract-signing process and did not have sufficient time to understand fully their contractual requirements. For example, Winston, a 28-year-old farmer in Mashonaland Central, said, “The form is too long. They just tell you where to sign. Reading and understanding it, that's another thing altogether.” Winston said he was part of a group of 10 farmers who were all contracted with the same company. He said a company representative asked them to sign their contract forms as a group: “Normally, they only have an hour to get us to sign the forms. He [the company representative] attends to us as a group…. 10 farmers in one hour. He’ll be telling you he’s in a hurry.”
The Tobacco Supply Chain
Tobacco grown in Zimbabwe enters the supply chains of some of the world’s largest tobacco companies. Companies sourcing tobacco from Zimbabwe have a responsibility to ensure that their business operations do not contribute to child labor and other human rights abuses, in line with the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Human Rights Watch shared its findings with the largest tobacco companies operating in Zimbabwe and requested information about their human rights policies and practices. Based on the responses we received and publicly-available information, we analyzed current practices regarding human rights due diligence in the tobacco industry in Zimbabwe.
Since 2004, Zimbabwe has had two systems for the sale of tobacco: contract farming and auction. In 2016, the last year for which data is available, contract tobacco sales accounted for 82 percent of Zimbabwe’s total tobacco production, while auction sales accounted for 18 percent.
Under the auction system, tobacco growers independently cover the costs associated with cultivation, deliver their crop to an auction floor of their choice, and sell it to the highest bidder. Under the contract farming system, farmers sign contracts agreeing to sell tobacco leaf to specific companies. The companies provide the inputs required for tobacco production, such as seeds and chemicals, and guarantee to buy all the tobacco contracted at prices equal to or higher than those offered on the auction floors at the end of the season.
Human Rights Watch wrote to 31 tobacco companies, including the eight companies that accounted for 86 percent of the tobacco purchase market share in Zimbabwe in 2016. We also wrote to several companies with whom we had previously corresponded regarding child labor on tobacco farms in other countries. The companies included 12 multinational tobacco companies: Altria Group, Alliance One International (AOI), British American Tobacco (BAT), China National Tobacco Corporation, Intercontinental Leaf Tobacco (ILT), Contraf Nicotex Tobacco GmbH (CNT), Imperial Tobacco (Imperial), Japan Tobacco International (JTI), Rift Valley Corporation/Northern Tobacco (NT), Premium Tobacco Group (Premium)/Premium Tobacco Zimbabwe (PTZ), Philip Morris International (PMI) and Universal Corporation (Universal); and three Zimbabwean tobacco leaf merchant companies: Boostafrica Traders (Boostafrica), Chidziva Tobacco Processors (Chidziva), and Curverid Tobacco Limited (Curverid). We did not contact other Zimbabwean companies with smaller market shares.
Altria Group and Philip Morris International stated that they do not purchase tobacco in Zimbabwe. Intercontinental Leaf Tobacco, and China National Tobacco Company, which operates in Zimbabwe through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Tian Ze, did not respond to Human Rights Watch. Boostafrica responded to Human Rights Watch but requested that the response be kept confidential.
Human Rights Watch also wrote to 16 additional companies authorized to purchase tobacco from auction floors in Zimbabwe in 2017. None of these companies responded to our letters.
Most tobacco companies purchasing tobacco in Zimbabwe that responded to Human Rights Watch stated they have detailed child labor and labor policies in place, including a prohibition on children performing most tasks involving contact with green tobacco, which they implement in their direct contracting. Companies also consistently stated that they have systems in place to monitor implementation of these policies and to take action in the event of identification of non-compliance, largely focused on correction and improvement, with the option of non-renewal of contract in the event of serious abuses or ongoing non-compliance.
No company that responded to Human Rights Watch indicated that they conduct any type of human rights due diligence in the auction system. Several companies, including Imperial and Universal, acknowledged the difficulty or impossibility of monitoring labor conditions among growers who sell tobacco on auction floors.
For contracted growers, in their responses to Human Rights Watch, all companies said that they provide training on health and safety through group meetings with farmers in farming communities and during visits to farms by company technicians. Topics include GTS, pesticide and chemical use, the use of protective equipment, as well as the prohibition of child labor. Few of the contracted farmers interviewed by Human Rights Watch stated that they had received the type of comprehensive training described by the companies. Most farmers stated that they had received some training and education about health and safety on pesticides. No farmers stated that they had received sufficient personal protective equipment from the contracting company, and few had purchased complete equipment themselves, due to the costs. Very few said they had comprehensive information about nicotine poisoning or GTS and how to prevent it; most had never heard of GTS. Some farmers stated that they received information about child labor, although many had not. Very few reported any known penalties for children performing hazardous work. Other farmers said that company representatives who visited farms largely, or exclusively, shared information related to successful tobacco cultivation.
Hired farmworkers on large-scale contract farms told Human Rights Watch that company representatives visited the farms where they worked, but that representatives spoke only with farm management, not workers. Many hired workers said their employers did not provide them with complete or effective protective equipment.
Human Rights Watch found that while companies made an effort to provide overviews and some details of their efforts in response to our inquiries, they did not disclose sufficient information to allow for external stakeholders to make an objective assessment as to whether a company is identifying key human rights problems, addressing them effectively, and improving human rights compliance in its supply chain. Northern Tobacco, one of the largest buyers of tobacco in Zimbabwe, provided the most complete report of the methods and outcomes of monitoring in 2017 in one tobacco growing region in Zimbabwe, which can serve as a good example of transparent reporting.
None of the companies contacted publish sufficient information on their websites or otherwise. Publishing clear, comprehensive information about a company’s monitoring system is an essential component of effective due diligence and sends a message that companies are willing to be accountable when human rights abuses are found in their supply chain.
Key Recommendations
To the Government and the Parliament of Zimbabwe
Revise the list of hazardous occupations for children set out in the 2001 amendment to the Children’s Act, or enact a new law or regulation, to explicitly prohibit children from working in direct contact with tobacco in any form.
Vigorously investigate and monitor child labor and human rights violations on tobacco farms, including small-scale farms.
To the Ministry of Health and Child Care
Develop and implement an extensive public education and training program to promote awareness of the health risks of work in tobacco farming. At a minimum, ensure that the program includes information on the risks of exposure to nicotine, pesticides, and the special vulnerability of children; prevention and treatment of acute nicotine poisoning (Green Tobacco Sickness); the safe handling and storage of pesticides; methods to prevent occupational and take-home pesticide exposure; and the use of personal protective equipment.
To All Companies Purchasing Tobacco from Zimbabwe
Adopt a global human rights policy prohibiting the use of child labor anywhere in the supply chain, if the company has not yet done so. The policy should specify that hazardous work for children under 18 is prohibited, including any work in which children have direct contact with tobacco in any form. The policy should also include specific provisions regarding labor rights and occupational safety and health.
Conduct regular and rigorous monitoring in the supply chain for child labor and other human rights risks, and engage entities with expertise in human rights and child labor to conduct regular third-party monitoring in the supply chain.
Regularly publish detailed information about internal and external monitoring in a form and frequency consistent with the guidelines on transparency and accountability in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
