The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective. To examine British American Tobacco and other tobacco industry support of the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation. Methods. Analyses of internal tobacco industry documents and ethnographic data on tobacco farm workers, company officials, and other key individuals in Malawi's agricultural sector obtained in Malawi between 1997 and 2003. Results. British American Tobacco co-founded the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation (ECLT) in October 2000 and launched its pilot project in Malawi. ECLT's initial projects were budgeted at US$2.3 million over four years. Using these ECLT funds, labour unions and tobacco leaf dealers undertook modest efforts such as building schools, planting trees, and constructing shallow wells as an attempt to counterbalance the use of child labor in tobacco farming. In stark contrast, the tobacco companies received nearly US$40 million in economic benefit through the use of unpaid child labour in Malawi during the same four years. Our interpretation is that British American Tobacco's efforts to combat child labour in Malawi through ECLT were developed for the company's “corporate social responsibility agenda” rather than to accept responsibility for eradicating child labor in Malawi, and to distract public attention from corporate profits derived from low wages and cheap tobacco.