Dear Newsmaker Letter
Rory Pritchard
Professor Brad Long
October 3rd 2014

Actual article:
Children working on tobacco farms in the United States are exposed to nicotine, toxic pesticides, and other dangers, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
While US law prohibits the sale of tobacco products to children, children can legally work on tobacco farms in the US. The world’s largest tobacco companies buy tobacco grown on US farms, but none have child labor policies that sufficiently protect children from hazardous work.

The 138-page report, “Tobacco’s Hidden Children: Hazardous Child Labor in US Tobacco Farming,” documents conditions for children working on tobacco farms in four states where 90 percent of US tobacco is grown: North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. Children reported vomiting, nausea, headaches, and dizziness while working on tobacco farms, all symptoms consistent with acute nicotine poisoning. Many also said they worked long hours without overtime pay, often in extreme heat without shade or sufficient breaks, and wore no, or inadequate, protective gear.
“As the school year ends, children are heading into the tobacco fields, where they can’t avoid being exposed to dangerous nicotine, without smoking a single cigarette” said Margaret Wurth, children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and co-author of the report. “It’s no surprise the children exposed to poisons in the tobacco fields are getting sick.”
The report is based on interviews with 141 child tobacco workers, ages seven to 17

|
Children working in tobacco farming face other serious risks as well, Human Rights Watch said. They may use dangerous tools and machinery, lift heavy loads, and climb several stories without protection to hang tobacco in barns. Children also reported that tractors sprayed pesticides in nearby fields. They said the spray drifted over them, making them vomit, feel dizzy, and have difficulty breathing and a burning sensation in their eyes.
Many of the pesticides used in tobacco production are known neurotoxins, poisons that alter the nervous system. The long-term effects of childhood pesticide exposure can include cancer, problems with learning and cognition, and reproductive health issues.Children are especially vulnerable because their bodies and brains are still developing.Human Rights Watch sent letters to 10 US and global tobacco companies and met with many of them to encourage these companies to adopt policies, or strengthen existing policies, to prevent hazardous child labor in their supply chains.
“Tobacco companies shouldn’t benefit from hazardous child labor,” Wurth said. “They have a responsibility to adopt clear, comprehensive policies that get children out of dangerous work on tobacco farms, and make sure the farms follow the rules.”

Health Hazards for Children
Several hundred thousand children work in US agriculture every year, but no data is available on the number working in tobacco farming. Many children interviewed by Human Rights Watch described going to work on tobacco farms at age 11 or 12, primarily during the summer, to help support their families. Most were the children of Hispanic immigrants who lived in communities where tobacco was grown and who attended school full-time.
Children Human Rights Watch interviewed described feeling suddenly, acutely ill while working on tobacco farms. “It happens when you’re out in the sun,” said a16-year-old girl in Kentucky. “You want to throw up. And you drink water because you’re so thirsty, but the water makes you feel worse. You throw up right there when you’re cutting [tobacco plants], but you just keep cutting.” A 12-year-old boy in North Carolina described a headache he had while working:“It was horrible. It felt like there was something in my head trying to eat it.”
Acute nicotine poisoning – often called Green Tobacco Sickness – occurs when workers absorb nicotine through their skin while handling tobacco plants, particularly when plants are wet. Common symptoms include nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness. Though the long-term effects are uncertain, some research suggests that nicotine exposure during adolescence may have consequences for brain development.
Several children told Human Rights Watch that they had been injured while working with sharp tools and heavy machinery. In Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, children often hand-harvest tall tobacco plants by cutting them with small axes and spearing the stalks onto long sticks with pointed ends. The children said they often cut or puncture themselves on the hands, arms, legs, and feet. A 16-year-old boy described an accident while harvesting tobacco in Tennessee: “I cut myself with the hatchet.… I probably hit a vein or something because it wouldn’t stop bleeding and I had to go to the hospital…. My foot was all covered in blood.” One 17-year-old boy interviewed by Human Rights Watch lost two fingers in an accident with a mower used to trim small tobacco plants.Almost none of the children Human Rights Watch interviewed said that employers had given them health and safety training or protective gear. Instead, children typically covered themselves with black plastic garbage bags in an attempt to keep their clothes dry when they worked in fields wet with dew or rain.
Federal data on fatal occupational injuries indicates that agriculture is the most dangerous industry open to young workers. In 2012, two-thirds of children under 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.Most children interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they had no access to toilets or a place to wash their hands at their worksites, leaving them with tobacco and pesticides residue on their hands, even during mealtimes.

Lack of Protection Under US Law
Under US labor law, children working in agriculture can work longer hours, at younger ages, and in more hazardous conditions than children in any other industry. Children as young as 12 can be hired for unlimited hours outside of school hours on a farm of any size with parental permission, and there is no minimum age for children to work on small farms. At 16, child farmworkers can do jobs deemed hazardous by the US Department of Labor. Children in all other sectors must be 18 to do hazardous work.Regulations proposed by the Labor Department in 2011 would have prohibited children under 16 from working on tobacco farms, but they were withdrawn in 2012.
“The US has failed America’s families by not meaningfully protecting child farmworkers from dangers to their health and safety, including on tobacco farms,”Wurth said. “The Obama administration should endorse regulations that make it clear that work on tobacco farms is hazardous for children, and Congress should enact laws to give child farmworkers the same protections as all other working children.”

Role of Tobacco Companies
Human Rights Watch presented its findings and recommendations to 10 companies that purchase tobacco grown in the United States, including eight cigarette manufacturing companies: Altria Group (parent of Philip Morris USA), British American Tobacco, China National Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Group, Japan Tobacco Group, Lorillard, Philip Morris International, Reynolds American, and two international leaf merchants who purchase tobacco leaf and sell to manufacturers: Alliance One and Universal Corporation.
All of the companies except China National Tobacco responded and said they are concerned about child labor in their supply chains. However, the companies’ approaches do not sufficiently protect children from hazardous work, Human Rights Watch said. In some cases, companies allow for lower standards of protection for children in their US supply chain than for children working on tobacco farms in all other countries from which they purchase tobacco.
Philip Morris International has the most comprehensive global child labor policy among the companies contacted. Since 2010, Philip Morris International has sought to carry out the policy through training and monitoring in its supply chain worldwide. In 2009, Human Rights Watch documented abuses on farms supplying tobacco to a Philip Morris International subsidiary in Kazakhstan.
Human Rights Watch urged companies to prohibit children from engaging in all tasks that pose risks to their health and safety, including any work involving direct contact with tobacco plants or dry tobacco, due to the risk of nicotine exposure. Companies should also establish effective internal and third-party monitoring of labor policies.“Farming is hard work anyway, but children working on tobacco farms get so sick that they throw up, get covered by pesticides, and have no real protective gear,”Wurth said. “Tobacco companies should get children out of hazardous work on tobacco farms and support efforts to provide them with alternative educational and vocational opportunities.”

Dear Phillip Morris Corporation,

I am writing you this letter as a concerned individual worried about the welfare of the children working in the tobacco industry within the United States of America. I have just recently read a news article published by Human Rights Watch, called, “US: Child Workers in Danger on Tobacco Fields,” what I read greatly disturbed me. In the United States children as young as 12 years old are legally allowed to work within the agricultural industry, for smaller farms there is no age limit to who is legally allowed to work. Although legally the tobacco industry is not breaking any laws in terms of child labor, one would think that there would be a restriction on the type of agriculture that these children are allowed to partake in. Harvesting tobacco is not an easy job, nor is it risk free.
When children or any individual for that matter are working within the tobacco fields they are exposed to numerous types of toxic pesticides as well as the nicotine itself. A common sickness that occurs is “Green tobacco sickness,” this is when workers who have been working in the fields absorb nicotine through their skin from handling the tobacco, causing symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, headaches, and dizziness. The risk of absorption increases exponentially when it is wet, to the point that workers are told to wear garbage bags around their body in order to prevent the absorption, however they do not supply any worker with these bags, but instead expect you to bring it yourself.
Although the exact long-term effects of working with tobacco are unknown, there has been some research to suggest that it has been linked to cancer, nerve damage and impact brain development of young adolescents. The hours of hard physical labor that these children work is well beyond what I believe you or I could do on a daily basis. In the scorching heat most employees work between fifty and sixty hours a week, with limited breaks. A lot of the time employers do not even give their employees water, or bathroom breaks. Not only is the product that these children are working with harmful, but also the environment that they work in is by no means up to standards with that of a safe workplace environment. Children are expected to use sharp tools and work machinery without instructions. Once cut the tobacco plants are stored high up in rafters that are up to 15 feet high, workers are expected to free climb up with no safety precautions, if they fall it could result in serious injury.
I am sure that you have heard of the phrase, “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you,” this is the principle of universality. With this phrase in mind I would like you to now imagine you were the one working in such conditions, would you continue? Better yet, imagine your child was one of the children working in the fields, would you allow it? If you wouldn’t allow for your own child to work in such conditions then why is okay for someone else’s to? You might say that it is up to the parents of these children to prevent them from working in the industry and that it is their free choice, however, just because these children have the freedom to choose to work in the tobacco fields does not mean that it is okay to allow them to do so. It may be their choice to work there, but in reality it may be the only option they have for work, and work may be a necessity to their survival. Of the children working in the fields 75% of them come from poor Hispanic families, if the children and the parents do not work, the family will end up on the streets, so the choice really comes down to working in the fields or living on the streets, personally I wouldn’t say that there is much of a choice there.
Children of the United State are legally obliged to go to school, once school is finished the time is theirs to do as they please, time to do homework, be imaginative, play with friends and generally grow as a person. These adolescent years are critical for brain and growth development, I believe they are the years that begin to shape who this person will be in the years to come. Work is a part of life, it is essential to making the world go round, everyone needs to survive, and in order to do so majority of people need to partake in some form of labor, whether physical or mental. That being said, no child should be working a fifty to sixty hour, labor-intensive workweek. Working these children the way these farms do leaves no opportunity for these children to explore themselves as individuals, or find delight in life, it takes the fun out of being a kid.
Now I am not saying that all work for children is bad, work builds integrity, and children need to learn how to work, for as I said it is essential in life, but the ability to work should be something that is learnt over time. Children need to learn to balance work and life in order to prosper in the future, at such a young age work should entail doing chores around the house, yard work for neighbors or maybe even a weekend job. They should not be coming home from a twelve hour day unable to stand on their own two feet, only to have to get up and do it all over again.
I believe that every individual has the right to a safe work place environment, especially where children are involved. I would therefore expect to find these kinds of working conditions in third world countries; however, I would have never imagined that they would be found so close to home. Running such a corporation as Phillip Morris Co entails having a supply chain, these tobacco fields that the children work in are part of that supply chain. Although you directly do not hire the children you are supporting the company that does, and therefore supporting the work environment that they are working in. Legally you are doing nothing wrong, but from a moral standpoint I wonder how you can purchase from farms that allow for children to work in such a hazardous environment. No water, no bathroom breaks, you are taking away basic human rights. You are allowing for children to go home so sick that they are unable to get out of bed; I believe you are doing bad business.
Now I am not saying that you are a bad person, but I believe that it is the social responsibility of everyone, corporations and individuals alike to make our world a better place. No person should care about profit and profit alone. In order to make profit you need other people; to produce your cigarettes it is essential to you to have a tobacco supplier, to produce tobacco it is essential to have workers. So therefore in order to produce your cigarettes you need workers. You provide the funds to tobacco suppliers who in turn pay their employees.
Producing 18 different types of cigarette brands you are one of the leading tobacco companies in the industry, being in such a position provides you with buyer power. If the tobacco fields that you purchase from were to lose you as a buyer I am sure that it would impact their gross margin and not in positive way. With this is mind I believe that you could make a difference. If you wanted to, you could have the opportunity to be a leader within the tobacco industry. As a leader you could help change the way that these children live. You have an opportunity to do what is right, what is morally good for all working in the tobacco industry. These children are working in such conditions to provide you with tobacco so that you are able to make a profit and live the life you live. You are using them as ends to your mean, not seeming to care how these children are affected in the long run.
It is illegal for children to purchase cigarettes, yet it is legal for them to work in tobacco fields. It is arguable that cigarettes and working in tobacco fields are equally detrimental towards your health, so how is it okay that these children are being exposed to such detrimental health risks on a daily basis?
Some think it is the role of the government to make sure that such conditions do not exist, and to that I do not disagree. However, I do not think it is only the role of the government; I believe it is the role of the individual, the government, and corporate social responsibility. Every person has opportunity to make positive change, whether big or small, change is change and every little bit counts. Big corporations such as Phillip Morris have greater opportunity to make change because of the power that they have, and with power comes responsibility.
Children do not belong in tobacco fields. If you care for children, or have any sense of compassion why not step up and make a change? Do something to better society as a whole opposed to your individual self. Change is not something that can happen over night, it is a process, but I believe with the power you have in the tobacco industry it is a change that is possible. So what can you do to help promote change?
Initially I would suggest speaking to your competition, it is not only your job to help advocate for change in the industry, but it is the job of everyone involved. You and your competition have common grounds in the sense that you both require tobacco in order for your companies to remain profitable. If you were to all ban together and approach those who run the tobacco farms with the issues you have they would have no choice but to listen. If leading tobacco industries were to boycott tobacco farms using child labor they would have limited people to sell to. However, if these farms did choose to ignore what you had to say, I would suggest turning to the tobacco fields that do not allow for such horrendous activity to go on.
Secondly, I would suggest that you approach the government with your concerns, the welfare of America’s children is at stake, and as I said before it is everyone’s job to try and make right what is wrong. Tobacco field child labor is not a new issue; there are many individuals equally as appalled as I am about the way that this industry is run. If enough people approach the government and press for change, change will eventually come. You and your competition are the ones that hold the most power to advocate for change in such an area, if you cut ties with those who produce child labor, and continually address the government with this issue I firmly believe that the issue will be addressed.
Many think that the main objective of a business is profit maximization; the majority of businesses that start up have a goal of profitability, which makes sense. Money makes the world go round, and everyone needs money to survive. However, we have to remember that within a business there is more people involved than just the man on top, all businesses require employees, and a majority of businesses require suppliers who also have employees. Every business and corporation needs to remember that every single person that works within a supply chain is in fact a person. Just because someone is at the bottom of the supply chain (such as the children working in the tobacco fields) does not mean that they have any less rights as a person.
With that being said, I hope that you take into consideration the issues that I have addressed in this letter. You, me, and every other individual, and corporation need to remember to treat others the way that you would want to be treated. We can look to make a profit in life, but we cannot ignore how our actions impact those around us.

Sincerely, Rory Pritchard