The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

The health effects of tobacco are well known, as is the predatory advertising of the tobacco companies, including the disparate impact on low income and minority families. Most tobacco activists are focussed on these issues, which indeed, remain huge problems. However, there is another extremely serious problem resulting from the tobacco industry's willingness to do whatever it takes to profit from their cancer-causing product -- Phillip Morris and British American Tobacco in particular are using tobacco harvested by children in Brazil, Mexico, Malawi, India, and Indonesia, to name a few countries. Further, the children are exposed to hazardous chemicals, and their parents are often laboring under a feudal-like debt bondage system. The presentation will focus on the prospect for developing a legal case against these compnaies for the clear human rights violations involved in this perncious practice. The ILRF has experience brining similar cases against multinational compnaies for using child labor, forced labor and slavery-like practices in the global economy.