Child Labor| The biopolitics of tobacco and the erasure of worker exploitation
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Moderator’s
Note: Human Rights Watch (HRW) just
released a report on children in the tobacco fields of the USA. Dorinda Moreno
sent a set of insightful comments by a respected expert on the issue of tobacco
and health. She notes that the conversation is shared for the purpose of
extending questions passed forward for our consideration…[by] Dr. Robert
Robinson. I am reposting an article about the HRW report, “Latino Immigrants: Thousands
of Children Work in U.S. Tobacco Fields”, which led to Dr. Robinson’s comments.
I have posted Dr. Robinson’s comments at the end after the Hispanically Speaking News article (re-posted below).
I have questions: We all know that tobacco kills.
What the public and elected officials seldom recognize is that
tobacco has other types of victims as well – and I am not talking about nonsmokers exposed to secondary smoke. Most likely to be overlooked and erased from
the public policy discourse are the health problems and socioeconomic
deprivations facing tobacco farm workers including the thousands of children
who toil in the tobacco fields where they are exposed to all manner of
hazardous conditions and toxic substances.
We are allowing policymakers to
erase this mode of exploitation and the subsequent destruction of young lives it brings due to the regressive politics of neoliberal neglect. These disparate health and social impacts make this an environmental justice challenge and it is up to our collective social movements to press upon President Obama the need to immediately address this by enforcing laws against the exploitation of child labor and investing in the social and economic development resources these children and their families and communities need if they are to live their full humanity as members of our society.
Surely, the occupational environment of tobacco farms
exposes these youngsters to substances and conditions that will kill them
later? Is this not a delayed death sentence? Are we not accomplices in a
biopolitical regime that allows the market-steered tobacco farm sector to
follow practices that shorten the lives of farm worker children by robbing them
of vitality and the right to exercise their full humanity? You don’t have to be
a smoker to pay the price of tobacco as a slow death sentence. A national failure to invest in the lives of the children of farm workers is a death sentence to our prospects for the recovery of equality and democracy.
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The hands of youth farm workers in tobacco fields, North Carolina. Photograph: Yesenia Cuello |
Human Rights Watch: Thousands of Children Work in
U.S. Tobacco Fields
Originally Published
at 8:09 pm EST, May 14, 2014 Hispanically
Speaking News
Thousands of children, most of them the
offspring of Hispanic immigrants, are working up to 60 hours per week in the
tobacco fields in the southern United States where they are exposed to nicotine
and pesticides, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
“We work almost all year,” Celia, who
began working on tobacco farms in North Carolina when she was only 12, told
Efe.
With a lot of effort, she graduated from
high school and now, at 20, she works in a bank.
“It’s the planting season, which is done
with a machine whose rhythm you have to follow,” she recounted. “Then comes the
season of getting rid of the grass, cutting the flower, getting rid of the dry
leaves, which is done by hand.”
“It you use gloves, it’s more difficult
to do and by doing it faster with (ungloved) hands you end up with your hands
smeared with tar,” Celia said, noting that “in this country you have to be at
least 18 to buy cigarettes, but you’re already working on the tobacco farms
from age 12.”
In its report, “Tobacco’s Hidden
Children: Hazardous Child Labor in US Tobacco Farming,” Human Rights Watch
documents the conditions in which minors work on farms in North Carolina,
Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, where 90 percent of U.S. tobacco is grown.
The majority of the child workers are
paid the federal minimum wage of $7.50 an hour.
The children reported suffering from
vomiting, nausea, headaches and fainting while they are working in the fields,
symptoms linked with acute nicotine poisoning, according to HRW.
Eric, a 17-year-old who began working in
tobacco when he was 11, said that the same workers must get things such as
plastic trash bags to cover themselves when it rains in the fields.
“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” HRW children’s rights
researcher Margaret Wurth said.
The report says that the children who
work on the farms also suffer from injuries caused by using cutting tools and
heavy machinery.
In the United States, regulation of the
employment of minors in agriculture is lax.
An attempt three years ago by the federal
Labor Department to bar employment of people under 16 on tobacco plantations
was beaten back.
HRW sent letters to 10 tobacco companies,
all of which responded that they comply with the child labor laws at their
plants.
HRW asked the makers of cigarettes and
other tobacco products to demand the same compliance on the tobacco farms.
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Image credit: ncchurches.org |
Robert Robinson on Tobacco Control
I wonder where this fits in the overarching
policy-focused paradigm of tobacco control? We regulate marketing to prevent
targeting and initiation. We regulate flavors; except for menthol…So, how
do we segue into labor and a safe work environment?
[….] Years ago I was presenting in Connecticut and
during a conversation with a cab driver he told me that Martin Luther King
[Jr.] came north during the summers and worked the tobacco fields. I
never checked the accuracy of this anecdote. I don’t even know if tobacco
was grown in Connecticut. But it did serve as a metaphor for the
ubiquitous nature of tobacco in our lives. Tobacco control during the
90’s made a concerted effort to organize tobacco farmers; exclusive of Black
farmers.
My research and publication (Robinson, R., “African
American Farmers and Workers in the Tobacco Industry,” Tobacco Farming: Current
Challenges and Future Alternatives, Southern Research Report #10, Academic
Affairs Library, Center for the Study of the American South, Southern
Historical Collection, Spring, 1998.) remains the only focused work on the
Black tobacco farmer amongst tobacco control professionals. Tobacco control saw
an alliance with the farmer as a means of undermining the power of the tobacco
industry. It had minimal success; but I always felt, apart from the lack of
inclusiveness, that it was a noble effort.
'
Given that youth is the
dominant cohort as regards tobacco control; a focus on child labor may be a
worthwhile priority to pursue. And hopefully in a manner inclusive of ALL
the children.
For more information:
1. Robert G. Robinson, DrPH - Health Information, Multicultural
... www.healthpowerforminorities.com/HealthChannelDetails.aspx?id=492 Robert G. Robinson, MSW, Dr.PH,
Principal developer and author of Pathways to Freedom: Winning the Fight
against Tobacco, a guide for African Americans, ...
2. [PDF]Introduction to Process Evaluation in Tobacco Use Prevention www.cdc.gov/tobac...United
States Centers for Disease Control and Preve... Feb 1, 2008 - Robert Merritt,
Team Lead, Evaluation Team ... Robert Robinson ... We also thank the
Ohio Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Foundation for ...
3. Robert Robinson | LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/pub/robert-robinson/6/693/743 View Robert Robinson's professional profile
on LinkedIn. ... Primary focus is tobacco prevention and control
initiatives related to population disparities with a ...
4. Tobacco control: consensus report of the National
Medical ... www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...National
Center for Biotechnology Information by S Marable - 2002 - Cited by 4 - Related articles Sharon Marable, Courtney Crim,
Gary C. Dennis, Roselyn Payne Epps, Harold Freeman, Sherry Mills, Eric T.
Coolchan, Lawrence Robinson, Robert Robinson, ...
5. Pathways to freedom: winning the fight against tobacco ... books.google.com › Self-Help › Substance Abuse & Addictions › General Pathways
to freedom: winning the fight against tobacco. Front Cover. Robert
G. Robinson, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.). U.S.
Dept. of ...
6. Winning the Fight Against Tobacco by Robert G. Robinson ... www.barnesandnoble.com/...tobacco-robert...robinson/1... Barnes & Noble Nov 29, 2011 - Available in:
NOOK Book (eBook). This guide is one answer to the major problem of smoking for
Blacks in America. For smokers, it provides a ...
7. ROBERT G. ROBINSON, DR. PH - Legacy Tobacco ... legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/uvr56a00;jsessionid...tobacco03 20+ items - University of California, San Francisco. Legacy Tobacco ...ROBERT
G. ROBINSON, DR. P.H.. ROBINSON RG; FOX CHASE CANCER CENTER; NATL BLACK
LEADERSHIP.
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