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The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that some 246 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 are engaged in work that is inappropriate for their age. Almost three-quarters of these children are in the worst forms of child labor - ranging from commercial farming through working excessive hours to slavery. The most basic cause of their plight is extreme poverty.
Child labor is a worldwide problem. It is impossible to know exactly how many children work in tobacco farming. Unfortunately, some major tobacco growing countries may count among those with child labour records.
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"We're opposed to child labor playing any part in our industry."
Salvador Rivera, Senior Vice President, Operations
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We are committed to working with others to eliminate child and forced labour. For instance, in Brazil we are partnering with the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF) on an initiative called "The future is now", which aims to create better social and educational conditions for the children of tobacco farmers.
The programme offers extracurricular activities and classes to school-age children, as well as workshops for farmers' families and rural teachers to raise awareness about the importance of education and the issue of child labor.
We are also members of the Eliminate Child Labor in Tobacco (ECLT) foundation, an organization founded in April 2002, which is a partnership between trade unions, tobacco growers and tobacco companies.
The aim of the ECLT foundation is to cooperate closely with organizations already working to eliminate child labor. We hope to contribute to long-term solutions by:
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funding independent research to produce an objective picture of the level of child labor in tobacco growing |
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supporting and funding local and community-based projects |
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establishing and sharing best practice and lessons learnt |
We at Philip Morris International have a child and forced labor policy, which sets a minimum age and forbids the use of forced labor in all our facilities around the world. For more information on this topic, please click the links on the right.
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