Indonesia's tobacco farms put kids at risk

Thousands of children who work on Indonesia's small-scale tobacco farms run the risk of acute nicotine poisoning, Human Rights Watch says.

It's hot, Ayu is tired and the 13-year-old can't stop throwing up.

She is one of thousands of children who Human Rights Watch estimates work on more than 500,000 small-scale tobacco farms in Indonesia, facing the potential risk of acute nicotine poisoning as well as the dangers of handling toxic pesticides.

They say the industry is virtually unregulated, and the government and large multinational companies, such as Phillip Morris International and British American Tobacco, are not doing enough to protect children.

Over three trips between September 2014 and September 2015, HRW researchers visited farms across the archipelago, the world's fifth-largest producer of tobacco.

They spoke to more than 130 children, as well as parents, tobacco farmers, buyers, sellers and health workers, and discovered three-quarters of the children interviewed began working with their families on tobacco farms by the time they were 12.

The majority reported experiencing symptoms associated with acute nicotine poisoning, pesticide exposure and other health-related illnesses, while some complained of respiratory issues, skin conditions and cutting themselves with tools.

Margaret Wurth, researcher on the report The Harvest is in My Blood, released on Wednesday, said the story of Ayu (a pseudonym) particularly struck her.

"She is a very thin, small girl, very soft-spoken. She talked about how she gets sick every year in the harvest," Ms Wurth told AAP.

Like others, Ayu, who is from a village near Garut in West Java, often helped her family before and after school and on weekends, sometimes skipping school altogether.

She gets sick when she helps mix toxic pesticides.

"Some families understood pesticides were toxic but even the information was not adequate. We would hear people say, `As long as you don't drink it, you will be okay'," Ms Wurth added.

The largest companies operating in the country include three Indonesian tobacco manufacturers and two multinationals - British American Tobacco and Philip Morris International. Other companies purchase tobacco grown in Indonesia.

Although some have guidelines banning children under 18 from performing some of the more hazardous tasks on tobacco farms, such as the harvesting of plants and the application of pesticides, "none have policies and procedures sufficient to ensure that tobacco entering their supply chains was not produced with hazardous child labour", the report notes.

Indonesia's child labour laws are generally in line with international standards, but HRW reports there are inadequate regulations and poor enforcement.

Ms Wurth said the government needed to enact binding standards and harsher penalties on these companies, as well as carry out health education.

"We think it would be great for people who purchase and use tobacco products to be putting pressure on the industry to say, 'Look, I don't want to buy a product that uses child labour'.

"Because the fact is none of these companies can guarantee that the products that they are selling to consumers are child labour-free."


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Source: AAP


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