Tactics range from the exploitation of farmers and use of child labour to threats and intimidation, and a “continent-spanning spy network”. All to pursue BAT’s own commercial goals.

Examples from across the region feature on an illustrative map, and below are links to further reading which provide a comprehensive understanding of the company’s activities in Africa.

Sabotage, Deceit and Duplicity: British American Tobacco Uncovered

Significant new reports and briefings can be found on the BAT Uncovered micro-site of TCRG’s partner organisation STOP at exposetobacco.org

These cover new allegations of bribery across Africa, and dirty tricks in South Africa.

Briefing papers on BAT’s alleged capture of state agencies, potential complicity in smuggling in South Africa and alleged connection to an attempted bribery conspiracy in Zimbabwe will be published on this site in due course.

Buying Influence and Advantage in Africa

Analysis of whistleblower documents by the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) at the University of Bath found a “large number of questionable payments” made by BAT over a five-year period.  This huge international corporation used these payments to influence policy and undermine competing tobacco companies, both international and local.

• Read the report summary: Buying Influence and Advantage in Africa: An Analysis of British American Tobacco’s Questionable Payments

BAT made payments impacting ten countries in East and Central Africa. They were made to politicians and civil servants, staff of competitor companies, journalists, farmers and others involved in positions of potential influence.  The use of these payments appeared to be systematized and supported by senior staff, including in BAT’s London office.

The full report details the payments and describes the serious consequences of this unethical business activity. It also suggests that governments globally should more closely examine BAT’s behaviour.

• Read the full report: “Unlawful Bribes?”: A documentary analysis showing British American Tobacco’s use of payments to secure policy and competitive advantage in Africa¹

The leaked source documents are publicly available in the UCSF Industry Documents Library Africa Collection (University of California, San Francisco).

Dirty Tricks in South Africa

In the report on British American Tobacco in South Africa, TCRG researchers explain how BAT has fought to maintain its dominance of this key market over decades, in the face of increased competition and growing illicit trade. The report describes how the company has used “any means necessary” to hold its position, including paying another company to run a “massive secret surveillance and informant network in Southern Africa on behalf of BAT”.

The report details BAT’s use of third party service providers, allegedly overseen and run by senior operatives at BAT’s London headquarters.  It also explains how BAT is “yet to face meaningful consequences for its actions either in the region or at home in the U.K.” after the U.K. Serious Fraud Office (SFO) dropped its five-year investigation in January 2021.

BAT has repeatedly denied accusations of corporate espionage, corruption and law-breaking,² but new analysis of leaked documents raises serious questions about BAT’s activities in South Africa, particularly in relation to tobacco smuggling and tax evasion.

The research by the TCRG was carried out in collaboration with BBC’s Panorama, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Organized Crime and Reporting Project.

• Read the report: British American Tobacco in South Africa: Any Means Necessary

See also:

The BBC’s Panorama documentary programme, broadcast on 13 September 2021, which “unveils new revelations about the corrupt practices deployed by one of Britain’s biggest companies.”³

• Watch ‘Dirty Secrets of the Cigarette Business’ (BBC iPlayer, UK only, registration required)
• Watch on BBC World Saturday 18 September 2021 (Africa link, switch to other regions at the bottom of the page, note times are GMT)

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

• Read: Smoke Screen: BAT’s agents brokered bribe proposal⁴
• Listen: Smoke Screen: Love, bribes, lies and spies in the tobacco industry

Victoria Hollingsworth tells the true story of corrupt practices behind the scenes at British American Tobacco. Hear from the very people caught up in this world as the Bureau sinks deep into the dirty underbelly of the tobacco industry in South Africa.

BAT in Africa: A History of Double Standards

TobaccoTactics details the history of BAT’s double standards, exposing a difference between its stated goals and principles, and its activities in low and middle-income African countries.  It includes links to earlier allegations against BAT, featured in a 2015 Panorama programme and media coverage at the time.

• See British American Tobacco in Africa: A History Double Standards

This page brings the story up to date…

• See British American Tobacco in Africa: Continuing Allegations of Misbehaviour

References

The post The BAT Files: How British American Tobacco Bought Influence in Africa appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

Article 17 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) encourages parties to promote sustainable alternatives to tobacco farming.⁵ There is a consensus that diversification programmes, designed for the local context, can improve farmers’ livelihoods.

Despite a global trend of decreasing tobacco consumption from 2000 to 2020,⁶ and an overall worldwide decline in tobacco leaf production during the same time period,⁷ tobacco remains a popular cash-crop choice for many farmers, especially in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) where the vast majority of tobacco farming takes place.⁸⁹  The global fall in tobacco leaf production has been accompanied by a production shift from Europe and other high income countries, towards lower income countries like Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia⁷¹⁰¹¹

The tobacco industry portrays tobacco farming as economically advantageous for governments and especially for farmers. Other claims include that it helps improve resilience, empowers low-income populations and strengthens communities, while the industry also tends to minimise the risks of tobacco growing for health and the environment.¹²¹³¹⁴

In reality, tobacco farming often leads to economic hardships, labour exploitation, environmental degradation, and health problems for farmers. Farmers often have less influence within the political process than non-tobacco growers in the same area.¹⁵

Image 1: Tobacco leaf drying (Source: Shutterstock)

The myth of economic prosperity

According to the tobacco industry, tobacco cultivation promises high rates of return for investing in tobacco crops and long-term benefits to smallholder farmers.¹²¹³¹⁴

However, tobacco growing is often less profitable for farmers than other crops, and tobacco-growing families are poorer than comparable non-tobacco-growing households.¹⁰¹⁶ In Lebanon, research has shown that small scale production is so unprofitable that it would not be possible without government subsidy.¹⁷

Evidence shows that the labour costs of growing tobacco are enormous, as much as double the labour needed to produce other similar crops. For example, tobacco is amongst the most labour-intensive crops in Kenya, requiring over 1,000 hours of unpaid labour to produce one acre of tobacco.¹⁸ The number of hours needed for tobacco growing stops families spending time attaining educational qualifications or developing skills that might lead to more lucrative livelihoods.

Tobacco growing also creates specific vulnerabilities for farmers:  they depend on tobacco companies for inputs and technologies, and are exposed to fluctuations in the price of tobacco leaf.¹⁹

In its reporting, the tobacco industry minimises the low rates of return on investment for tobacco growing and downplays the financial risks for the farmers. For example, BAT reported that in Kenya, tobacco farmers can either grow food for their families’ needs or have sufficient profits to purchase food.¹² A 2020 study of tobacco farming in Kenya instead shows that most tobacco farmers are stuck in unprofitable ‘contract farming’ systems and 10-15% are food insecure.¹⁸

Contract farming

Most tobacco farmers work under a contract system with leaf buying-companies or directly with transnational tobacco companies like BAT.¹⁸²⁰

Under these systems, farmers receive inputs like plants, fertiliser and machinery at the start of the season from leaf-buying companies, without having to pay for these upfront. In return, they commit to selling their tobacco to the leaf merchant. However, leaf prices are dictated by the buying companies, who often set these very low or reduce them during the contract period. Leaf buyers often use tobacco grading, or the classification of leaf quality, to reduce the offer price, often in disagreement with farmers.¹⁸²¹²² Leaf buying companies can also deduct unfairly high costs from the payment they offer farmers, to pay back the inputs they initially provided.¹⁸

Contract farming rarely produces the high returns promised by tobacco and leaf-buying companies. Instead, contract farmers remain stuck in ‘bonded labour’: debt cycles where they never earn enough to repay their debts.^18202223 Contracted farmers often have to rely on the unpaid labour of family members and children in fields in order to meet contract requirements.²⁰

Farmers often understand that this contract system for tobacco farming is risky but agree to this work because they lack the credit to pursue other economic opportunities. Contract tobacco growing guarantees them the income, however low, that they need in order to pay for basic necessities like healthcare and education.¹⁰

The COVID-19 pandemic and profitability

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened the struggle of farmers to find fair prices for their tobacco leaf. In Malawi, farmers reported receiving less than half of the expected rate for their tobacco leaf at auction.²⁴ Fears that crowded auction floors and direct contact between growers and buyers would promote transmission of the virus prompted Zimbabwean authorities to delay the opening of the tobacco market selling season.²⁵²⁶ Once the markets did open, new regulations stated that individual farmers would not be allowed onto auction floors where they could observe buyers; tobacco association representatives would instead sell leaf on behalf of farmers.²⁶

• For more information on the tobacco industry and COVID-19, see our page on COVID-19

The climate crisis and profitability

The climate crisis in tobacco-growing regions makes profits from tobacco growing more unreliable.

In Zimbabwe, shorter and more erratic rainy seasons decrease the quality and quantity of tobacco crops, especially for smallholder farmers who can’t afford irrigation systems and rely on rainfall instead.²⁷

In the tobacco-growing region of Temanggung, Indonesia, the phenomenon of late tobacco harvesting seasons has become increasingly common. In this region, farmers have been losing income, as companies purchase tobacco leaf from other regions where harvesting happens earlier in the year.²⁸

Farmers in tobacco growing regions that are heavily impacted by the climate crisis have been developing adaptation and mitigation strategies to maintain the profitability of their tobacco crops, such as irrigation systems and later harvesting. However, research indicates that “even with these adaptations tobacco and maize are riskier crops to grow than traditional grains.”²⁷²⁹ soil degradation,³⁰³¹ biodiversity loss,³² the use of pesticides,³³³⁴ and adverse effects on farmers’ health.³⁵ Despite this, tobacco companies use ESG rankings and accreditations to clean up their image.³⁶

• For more information, see the page Tobacco and the Environment

Image 2: A farmer carrying a bundle of tobacco leaf (Source: Shutterstock)

Vulnerable communities

Together with the narrative of economic prosperity comes the myth that impoverished and vulnerable communities are empowered. Philip Morris International (PMI) published a report in April 2020, focusing on the empowerment of women for change in its supply chain. In this report, PMI argued that it works to “empower women to play an active role in improving the household economic condition but also in enhancing the overall wellbeing of their children and maintaining a safe work environment” on tobacco farms.³⁷ However, a study in Zimbabwe concluded that women in households growing cash crops, in particular tobacco, were more likely to be disempowered.³⁸ A study conducted in China, Tanzania and Kenya concluded that few women in tobacco growing households in Tanzania and Kenya had any financial decision-making power. Women also face particular harmful effects to their health while working on tobacco farms, including the risk of miscarriage while pregnant.³⁹

All four transnational tobacco corporations present a strong and compelling narrative around tobacco farming: that it will improve livelihoods, strengthen communities, provide good working conditions and deliver financially stable futures for farmers.^40414243 For example, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) states on its website that “Growers know they will receive meaningful support that not only leads to improved yields and profits, but that also help improve the social conditions and quality of life in their communities.”⁴⁴

However, a WHO report on tobacco and the environment published in 2017 found that the long-term consequences include “increased food insecurity, frequent sustained farmers’ debt, illness and poverty among farmworkers, and widespread environmental damage”.²¹ Tobacco farmers end up having to dedicate intensive labour hours to produce tobacco leaf, in inadequate working conditions, with low wages and unfair conditions that include child labour (see below).

• For more information on the tobacco industry narratives around farming see International Tobacco Growers Association

Health risks to farmers

Tobacco leaf production has many health risks, which are frequently underreported by the tobacco industry.

According to the World Health Organization, “each day, a tobacco worker who plants, cultivates and harvests tobacco may absorb as much nicotine as found in 50 cigarettes”.⁹ Nicotine poisoning, also known as green tobacco sickness, occurs as a result of exposure to wet tobacco leaves during tobacco cultivation. Children are more likely to develop green tobacco sickness, not only because they have a relatively smaller body size, but also because they have not yet built up the nicotine tolerance which is needed protect them from these side effects.¹² Avoiding nicotine poisoning when working with tobacco plants is difficult, even when wearing protective equipment. BAT reported several cases of green tobacco sickness in its Brazilian farming operations, despite workers having worn protective equipment.¹²

Another risk resulting from tobacco farming is the exposure to agrochemicals, including pesticides. Researchers found that in Kenya, 26% of tobacco workers showed symptoms of pesticide poisoning;⁴⁵ in Malaysia, this number was higher than a third.⁴⁶ In Bangladesh, where weed killer is frequently used in tobacco fields, significant levels of chemicals were also detected in local water sources, killing fish and soil organisms needed to maintain soil health.⁴⁷

The risk of exposure to agrochemicals is generally lower for tobacco farmers in high-income countries than in LMICs, where the regulation of chemicals tends to be weaker.³⁰ Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) plus eleven other persistent organic pollutants used in agrochemicals are banned in high income countries, but not in some LMICs.³⁰⁴⁸ Pesticides are often sold to tobacco farmers in LMICs without proper packaging or instructions.³⁰⁴⁸ The health effects that derive from chronic exposure range from birth defects and tumours to blood disorders, neurological diseases and depression.³⁰⁴⁸ Even tobacco workers who do not directly mix or spray chemicals, like harvesters, can be exposed to significant levels of toxins and are susceptible to pesticide poisoning.²¹

Child Labour

Child labour is a prevalent and long standing issue in the tobacco farming sector.⁴⁹

Children involved in the growing stages of tobacco farming take part in labour-intensive activities,⁵⁰ which poses risks to their health,⁵¹⁵² and limits their access to education.⁵³⁵⁴

Children working in tobacco farms are also more vulnerable to the health risks than adults, including the impacts of absorbing nicotine.⁵⁵

Many of the children working in tobacco fields in Kenya report handling fertilisers and chemicals, endangering their health.¹⁸⁵⁵

Tobacco farming and the FCTC

The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is an international treaty that aims to reduce the demand and supply of tobacco.

It recognises that as countries and governments adopt measures to reduce the demand of tobacco products, they must also address the consequences of this demand reduction on tobacco farmers who rely on these crops for their livelihoods.⁵⁶

Specifically, article 17 recognises the need to:

“promote economically viable alternatives to tobacco production as a way to prevent possible adverse social and economic impacts on populations whose livelihoods depend on tobacco production.”⁵

The tobacco industry argues that tobacco control policies threaten the economic benefits  that it claims tobacco growing brings to local farmers.⁵However, other crops can provide much more sustainable alternatives. In addition, demand reduction happens slowly, allowing farmers to diversify their crops gradually, reducing the economic impact.⁵

Parties to the WHO FCTC also have an obligation to:

“have due regard to the protection of the environment and the health of persons in relation to the environment in respect of tobacco cultivation and manufacture within their respective territories.” ⁵⁶

• For more information see the page on Tobacco and the Environment

Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental, Social and Governance

In response to increasing scrutiny over environmental degradation and the use of child labour in the tobacco supply chain, transnational tobacco companies have invested in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives which they describe to their shareholders in their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reports.³⁶

• For more information, see the pages on CSR: Child Labour, and the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco-Growing (ECLT) foundation

The tobacco industry has also been involved in CSR programmes supporting farming diversification in tobacco growing regions, despite the FCTC specifically recommending that “policies promoting economically sustainable alternative livelihoods should be protected from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry”.⁵⁵⁷

• See Greenwashing in Malawi and the Centre for Agricultural Transformation (CAT)

PMI’s ‘Agricultural Labour Practices’ (ALP) Programme

On 10 December 2020, PMI published an article seeking to celebrate the International Day of Human Rights by promoting its achievements around its Agricultural Labour Practices (ALP) program. This programme was created by PMI in 2011, seemingly aiming to end child labour and protect workers’ rights and livelihoods.⁵⁸

According PMI’s ALP 2020 report, the key principles of the programme include “no child labor, no forced labor or human trafficking, fair treatment, safe working environment, fair income and work hours, freedom of association, and terms of employment”.⁵⁹ However, the timeline below (Image 3) from the same report, shows how, despite the programme having run for 9 years, PMI continues to use child labour in its supply chain. The company has given itself a further 5 years to end the practice.⁵⁹

Image 3: Timeline of the ‘Agricultural Labor Practices Program’ (Source: Philip Morris International, ALP program 2020 report)⁵⁹

• For more information on PMI’s ALP programme, and how tobacco companies fail to properly measure or manage the effectiveness of this type of initiative, see CSR: Child Labour

TobaccoTactics Resources

• Greenwashing
• Tobacco and the Environment
• CSR: Child Labour
• Tobacco Supply Chain Database: addressing the supply side of the tobacco epidemic

Relevant Links

• TCRG blog Supplying the deadly tobacco industry
• WHO World No Tobacco Day 2023: Grow food, not tobacco includes a myth buster on Tobacco growing
• WHO report: “Tobacco and the environment”
• Tobacco Atlas

TCRG Research

For a comprehensive list of all TCRG publications, including TCRG research that evaluates the impact of public health policy, go to the Bath TCRG’s list of publications.

References

The post Tobacco Farming appeared first on TobaccoTactics.

In reality, the ECLT Foundation is both funded and governed by tobacco companies, and is a vital part of their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy.

All four major Transnational Tobacco Companies (TTCs) have been part of ECLT’s board from its creation in 2000: British American Tobacco (BAT), Imperial Brands (IMB), Japan Tobacco International (JTI), and Philip Morris International (PMI). Other organisations that are, or have been, on the ECLT board include Swedish Match, Gallaher (now JTI), Scandinavian Tobacco and the International Tobacco Growers Association, as well as other national tobacco companies and tobacco growers.⁶²For a full list of current ECLT Board members, see the section below.

In 2001, the year after it was formed, ECLT reported income from members, the bulk of its income source, as CHF247,000 (approximately USD$247,000). Twenty years later, in 2021, its reported income had grown to USD $5,737,521, which came entirely from “donor contributions”.^63646566 According to the ECLT’s internal regulations, organisations and companies represented on the Board “must commit themselves to a financial contribution in favor of the Foundation”.⁶⁷

ECLT states that its “sole purpose and mandate is to prevent and protect children from child labour wherever tobacco is grown”.⁶¹ It promotes itself, and its public-private partnerships (PPPs) with the United Nations (UN), as part of the solution to tackling child labour in low and middle-income countries.

History

The ECLT Foundation was set up in Geneva in September 2000 as part of a wider strategy by the major tobacco companies, particularly BAT, to protect their corporate reputations and position themselves as “socially responsible”.⁶⁸

Its establishment followed high profile exposés of child labour on tobacco farms in the late 1990s, notably in Malawi, and the adoption of International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 182 in June 1999, which outlawed the “worst forms of child labour”.⁶⁹

ECLT grew out of a joint agreement in 2000 between BAT and the tobacco industry front group the International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA),⁷⁰ with The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF), to develop a programme of research and education aimed at eradicating child labour.⁷¹

BAT: “A Good Opportunity to Move to the Moral High Ground”

A peer-reviewed 2006 academic study on the ECLT Foundation’s pilot project in Malawi concluded, after analysing relevant BAT internal documents from 1998-2002, that the tobacco giant was using child labour projects as a means of enhancing its reputation. It argued that:

“rather than actively and responsibly working to solve the problem of child labour in growing tobacco, the company acted to co-opt the issue to present themselves over as a ‘socially responsible corporation’ by releasing a policy statement claiming the company’s commitment to end harmful child labour practices, holding a global child labour conference with trade unions and other key stakeholders, and contributing nominal sums of money for development projects largely unrelated to efforts to end child labour.”⁶⁸

The study, by Otañez et al, revealed how the IUF, ILO and International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) had commissioned a film that showed children as young as five working on tobacco farms in Malawi during the spring harvest in 1999. The idea was to put pressure on the companies and the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM, now Tobacco Europe) over its denials that child labour was occurring there. However, internal BAT documents released to the public through a litigation settlement in the United States and now online at the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents database show that IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald had promised that the film would not be anti-tobacco and “would be consigned to the archives” if the CECCM and companies cooperated and acknowledged the child labour problem in Malawi.⁷²⁶⁸

The IUF signed a joint declaration on child labour in June 1999 with the ITGA, witnessed by ILO Executive Director Kari Tapiola.⁷³ Correspondence that year between BAT and Hallmark, its UK public relations agency, showed a series of revised draft statements between IUF and ITGA. The final published version on the conference website⁷⁴ – drafted by Hallmark and BAT – notably dropped the IUF’s proposed inclusion of “respect for worker’s rights to freedom of association (as defined in ILO Convention 97)”.⁷⁵

In October 2000, BAT co-organised a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, with the IUF and ITGA, titled “Eliminating Child Labour: Establishing Best Practices in Tobacco Farming”.⁷⁶⁷⁷⁷⁸ According to the event brochure, the ILO’s Kari Tapiola was a keynote speaker, alongside two BAT staff, the ITGA’s president and the IUF’s Ron Oswald.⁷⁶⁷⁹ A BAT executive later deemed the conference “a huge success” in countering rising international concern among the UN, OECD, ILO and EU over human rights and labour standards – an agenda BAT described as being pushed by NGOs and other stakeholders “who seemed to be winning”. BAT’s international development affairs manager Shabanji Opukah wrote on 9 November 2000:

“Clearly, the successful launch of the ECLT has given us an excellent and rare opportunity to engage with our stakeholders on major platforms around what are today amongst some of the high profile and contentious global issues affecting reputation of international business.”

adding that:

“Our partnership with the IUF and ITGA gives us a good opportunity to move to the moral high ground on this particular issue and we would like to make use of it in line with the BAT CORA Consumer and Regulatory Affairs strategy for recognition as a responsible tobacco company. This strategy identifies corporate conduct and accountability as one of the six reputation management initiatives. Stakeholder engagement and communication is in this platform.”⁶⁸⁸⁰

According to the minutes of an October 2001 Tobacco Workers Trade Group Meeting at which ECLT’s first Executive Director Marc Hofstetter and project manager Alain Berthoud introduced themselves, the IUF was to hold the rotating presidency of the ECLT Foundation for the first two years. Ron Oswald was its first president.⁸¹

The IUF is no longer a board member of the ECLT Foundation. An ILO document on its tobacco industry partnerships in 2017 stated:

“the IUF served as ECLT’s President until 2013, when it withdrew, citing the viability and success of the Foundation as reasons for its decision to direct its capacity devoted to eliminating child labour elsewhere”.⁸²

In explaining their decision to withdraw, the IUF also cited the time and resources needed to ensure “our totally uncompromising position that child labour should not be used in any form stay a core feature of the ECLT’s work”, given ECLT’s inclusion of “all major industry players” on its executive board.⁸³

Funding Agreements with the ILO

From 2002 until 2018, the ECLT Foundation had a Public-Private Partnership agreement with the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO acted as advisor to the Foundation’s board alongside Save the Children Switzerland.

In March 2017, the ILO disclosed that it had received more than US$5.3 million from ECLT since 2002, but did not provide details on how this funding had been spent.⁸²Its relationship with ECLT, beyond acting as an advisor and observer to ECLT’s board, included the following agreements:

• The first agreement between ILO and ECLT covered the period 2002 to 2010 and aimed to fund research on child labour practices in Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, East Africa, and specifically, to eliminate child labour in Tanzania.⁸⁴
• The second agreement, covering the period between 2011 and 2015, focused on child labour in Malawi.⁸⁴
• The third agreement from 2015 until June 2018 was aimed at reducing child labour practices in Malawi, Uganda and Tanzania, promoting dialogue among tobacco growers’ organisations, and developing advice on hazardous tobacco farming work.⁸²

Following sustained pressure from the World Health Organization and more than 100 global groups, the ILO finally announced in November 2018 that it would stop accepting tobacco industry funding for its projects and would also not renew ECLT’s contract, which had expired in June of that year.⁸⁵⁸⁶

However, the ILO remains listed as “non-executive advisor” to the ECLT Board, as of 2022.⁶⁴⁸⁷

Membership of the UN Global Compact

As of June 2022, the ECLT Foundation remains a member of the Child Labour Platform of the voluntary UN Global Compact (UNGC) Human Rights and Labour Working Group – for which the ILO provides the secretariat. It became a member in 2015.⁸⁸

This is despite the UNGC’s decision in 2017 to permanently sever ties with tobacco companies, following the adoption of a breakthrough United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) resolution (E/2017/L.21) that encouraged UN agencies to develop policies to prevent tobacco industry interference.⁸⁹

The UNGC Integrity policy review, published in October 2017, stated:

“the UN Global Compact will de-list participating companies which fall under the tobacco exclusion. This new exclusionary criterion is strictly limited to companies that produce and/or manufacture tobacco or are part of a joint venture, have a subsidiary or affiliate stake in a company that produces and/or manufactures tobacco.”⁹⁰

Relationship with UNICEF

From 2003 to 2005, ECLT funded a programme to prevent child labour in tobacco growing in the Philippines, in which UNICEF acted as an advisor.⁹¹

In a study published in the journal Paediatrics on the tobacco industry and children’s rights, the authors described ECLT as one of several front groups used by the industry to successfully engage with UNICEF:

“After UNICEF’s corporate engagement guidelines were loosened in 2003, tobacco companies successfully engaged with UNICEF directly and via front groups, including the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation. This was part of an overall tobacco industry strategy to improve its corporate image, infiltrate the United Nations, and weaken global tobacco-control efforts.”⁹²

The ECLT Foundation rejected these allegations as “baseless” and “false”.⁹³

UNICEF also published a rebuttal, in which it stated that it had not worked on ECLT projects in an advisory capacity, that its only interactions with the Foundation had been limited to “sharing information and increasing awareness about child rights issues related to the industry’s supply chain,” and that it had not received tobacco industry funding.⁹⁴

Questionable impact on child labour practices

After almost two decades of work by the ECLT Foundation, child labour remains entrenched in many tobacco-growing regions.

ECLT has pointed to its success in removing over 195,000 children from tobacco farms since 2011 and sending over 32,000 to school and vocational training.⁹⁵However, critics of the Foundation and its tobacco industry members argue that it has done little to redress or target the structural issues afflicting these regions, instead publicising the positive, and often individually-focused, stories.⁹¹

In 2018, a series of Guardian investigations revealed “rampant” child labour in Indonesia, Malawi, Mexico and the United States.^{96979899100101} The ILO similarly noted in 2017 that “surveys indicate that child labour is rampant in impoverished tobacco-growing communities”.⁸² Following the Guardian investigations, a legal claim was launched in the UK in December 2020 against BAT and Imperial Brands, alleging they profited from child labour in Malawi.¹⁰²

• For more information on Child Labour in Tobacco growing, see our page CSR: Child Labour

Professor Marty Otañez, an anthropologist from the University of Colorado, and lead author of the previously mentioned 2006 study on BAT and ECLT in Malawi, is a long-standing observer of tobacco farming in that country. Otañez told The Guardian that welfare projects were “pushing out goodwill on behalf of tobacco companies to address some of the problems but avoid the harder issues of leaf prices and living and earnings”.⁹⁶ Tenant farmers on tobacco estates in Malawi, for example, earn just US$224 a year.⁹⁸

In September 2017, the Malawi tobacco farmers’ union TOAWUM wrote “on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Malawi farmers” to the ILO’s Governing Body, asking it to ban public-private partnerships with the tobacco industry at its upcoming 331st meeting. In its letter, TOAWUM stated that initiatives such as the ECLT Foundation,

“insufficiently address root causes of tobacco-related child labour, which is endemic poverty among tobacco farmers. That poverty is exacerbated by contracting schemes developed by the very companies funding some projects for ECLT.”¹⁰³

TOAWUM’s criticism echoed that of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), which wrote to ILO Director Clarence Thomas in 2013 following its own research into child labour and ECLT’s projects in the ASEAN region. It highlighted the hypocrisy of an industry whose business model perpetuates child labour in its supply chain:

“Unlike other industries that have a zero tolerance for child labour, the tobacco industry has set no such polices or target date for complete eradication of child labour. The tobacco industry, while publicly condemning child labour, continues to purchase and use leaves that are produced by child labour and profits from them.

“The tobacco industry’s miniscule contributions through so-called corporate social responsibility activities including the ECLT are a whitewash of the problem. The more serious issue is that these CSR activities provide a convenient platform for tobacco companies to gain access to policy makers who are responsible to approve and implement tobacco control measures. The endorsement from IPEC (Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour) and ILO of ECLT only serves to strengthen and protect the tobacco industry.”⁹¹

Legal Threats Against International Tobacco Control Groups

In July 2018, amid a concerted campaign by the WHO and 100 global NGOs to get the ILO to terminate all its tobacco-related partnerships, the ECLT Foundation instructed a Swiss law firm to issue a “formal notice before legal proceedings” against the US-based NGO Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK).¹⁰⁴

The legal notice from Capt & Wyss, solicitors for ECLT, emphasised the organisation’s “independence” as a registered non-profit Swiss organisation, and demanded that CTFK “immediately” delete from a press release posted on its website the “defamatory”, “untrue and misleading” references to ECLT as a:

• “tobacco-industry-dominated group”;
• “front group for tobacco industry interests under the guise of a corporate social responsibility initiative” and;
• that it “represents an alliance of tobacco companies and growers – led exclusively by the tobacco industry”.

In addition, the legal notice stated that ECLT “seeks a public and online apology, respectively rectification, relating to this unlawful publication.”¹⁰⁴

In his response, CTFK’s President Matthew L. Myers noted that his organisation’s descriptions of ECLT were “well-documented based on the best publicly available information”, “factually accurate” and furthermore were already in the public domain. CTFK received no subsequent response to its reply from either the lawyers or ECLT.¹⁰⁵

ECLT also published an online rebuttal to an October 2017 press release by the global NGO Framework Convention Alliance on Tobacco Control (FCA) in which it rejected FCA’s “false” assertions that “Reports have repeatedly claimed that ECLT’s work aims to keep farmers dependent on aid from the tobacco industry to avoid them abandoning the sector.(sic)” and that “ECLT allows the tobacco industry to promote a positive public image while continuing the practices that cause labour exploitation in the first place”.¹⁰⁶ The rebuttal was reprinted in Tobacco Reporter.¹⁰⁷

Following emails from ECLT’s executive director that same month, the FCA later received a ‘cease and desist’ notice from Capt & Wyss in January 2018 specifically noting the first point above and the FCA’s public “Letter to the UN Secretary General on Cooperation between the Tobacco Industry and the ILO”, signed by over 180 organisations in October 2017.¹⁰⁸ Although the FCA did take down both documents as a precautionary response, no further action was taken¹⁰⁹and these remain in the public domain.¹¹⁰

ECLT Team

From its inception, the ECLT Foundation has typically employed highly experienced human rights and development professionals, many of them with solid track records of working within the UN system either as staff or consultants. This strategy appears to have been critical to tobacco companies’ insistence on the organisation’s “independence” and for its dealings with the ILO and other UN agencies such as UNICEF.

Internal BAT documents now online at the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive show that BAT, when setting up ECLT in 2000, was “looking for an executive with experience in the UN and NGO sectors and ability to raise funds on a global scale. The individual will also need to have high diplomatic campaigning and lobbying skills and a good span of experience in these areas. Knowledge of French and other UN languages is also desired…”⁸⁰

In one case, ECLT’s new executive director in 2008 came directly from working with the ILO in Tanzania.

Leadership

A list of current staff can be found on the ECLT website.

• Karima Jambulatova, Executive Director (from May 2019). Has worked with ECLT since 2013.⁶⁰
• David Hammond, Executive Director (2017-2019). Barrister and founder of a marine human rights organization.¹¹¹
• Sonia C. Velázquez, Executive Director (2012-2017). Previously worked with Plan International, America Humane and Save the Children, among others. Was instrumental in gaining ECLT its ECOSOC consultative status and UN Global Compact membership from 2015.¹¹²
• Marilyn Blaeser, Executive Director (2008-2011), joined ECLT after working for ILO as Chief Technical Advisor (Child Labour) in Tanzania. CV includes six years with UNICEF and UNHCR.¹¹³
• Mark Hofstetter, (2000-2005). Was Head of Delegation at the International Committee of the Red Cross for 13 years before becoming ECLT’s first director.¹¹⁴

Board Members

ECLT’s board is mostly made up of industry executives from cigarette manufacturers and tobacco leaf growers. The following individuals formed the ECLT Board in 2022:⁸⁷

• Mike Ligon, ECLT President, from the Universal Leaf Tobacco Company, a regular speaker at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum (GTNF) (succeeded Antonio Abrunhosa from the International Tobacco Growers Association)
• Elaine McKay, ECLT Vice-President, from JTI and Japan Tobacco Inc.
• Michiel Reerink, treasurer, from tobacco-leaf manufacturer Alliance One International, previously affiliated with JTI and a regular attendee at the GTNF.
• Mauro Gonzalez, from PMI.
• Surinder Sond, from Imperial Brands.
• Mercedes Vazquez from the International Tobacco Growers Association.
• Mathew Wilde, from Contraf-Nicotex-Tobacco GMBH.
• Jennie Galbraith, from British American Tobacco, an attendee at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in 2013 when she was group head of sustainability at BAT.
• Emmett Harrison, from Swedish Match.
• Itsanne Fokkema, from Hail & Cotton Inc., a tobacco leaf dealer, with purchasing and processing capacity to provide Flue Cured, Burley, Dark Fired, Oriental and other tobacco manufacturers.
• Glyn Morgan, from Premium Tobacco.
• Mette Valentin, from the Scandinavian Tobacco Group.
• Simon Steyne, independent expert.

Projects and partners

ECLT provides details of its activity on its website and in its annual reports. In 2021 it was active in nine countries; in some it worked directly with communities and NGOs, while in others it worked with government, industry, and other stakeholders.⁶³

Argentina

With the Provincial Commission for the Prevention and Eradication of Child Labour, a public entity, on an awareness-raising campaign in the northern, tobacco-growing province of Misiones. ECLT also provided input for a training curriculum on child labour in Buenos Aires.⁶³¹¹⁵

Guatemala

With Defensa Niños y Niñas Costa Rica, in the municipality of San José La Máquina, providing “market-driven youth employment training”.^63116117

Indonesia

Part of the ‘Partnership in Action Against Child Labour in Agriculture’ (PAACLA), a multi-stakeholder initiative coordinated by the Ministry of National Development Planning. With Jaringan LSM Penghapusan Pekerja Anak (JARAK), Lembaga Pengkajian Kemasyarakatan dan Pembangunan (LPKP) and Yayasan Tunas Alam Indonesia (SANTAI).⁶³¹¹⁸

Malawi

With CARE Malawi, the MicroLoan Foundation, and Rays of Hope.⁶³¹¹⁶

Mozambique

With IDE Mozambique and Fundação Apoio Amigo. From 2018 to 2021 ECLT had a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Mozambique.^63116119

Tanzania

With Tabora Development Foundation Trust (TDFT) and the Tanzania Association of Women Leaders in Agriculture and Environment (TAWLAE).⁶³¹²⁰

Uganda

With Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) and ECLA Uganda.⁶³¹¹⁶

United States

With state and federal authorities, academia, and other stakeholders on research into child labour in agriculture.⁶³

Zimbabwe

Participated in a survey on child labour in tobacco growing carried out by the Zimbabwe National Statistical Agency and disseminated by the Ministry of Labour, Public Service and Social Welfare. Supported the creation of a working group on child labour by the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board.⁶³

The ECLT also worked in Kyrgyzstan until 2017.¹²¹

Tobacco Tactics Resources

• CSR: Child Labour
• Greenwashing
• International Labour Organization
• International Tobacco Growers Association
• Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
• CSR Strategy
• United Nations Global Compact
• Legal Strategy

Relevant Links

• ECLT Foundation website
• Child labour in the tobacco industry TCRG blog
• STOP brief on ECLT (2019)

References

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