Hundreds of thousands of children worldwide are thought to be working full-time on tobacco farms, suffering from toxic levels of nicotine exposure and abusive labor conditions.

    In Malawi alone there are an estimated 78,000 boys and girls employed in tobacco harvesting. On average they earn 17 cents for a 12-hour day of back-breaking, bare-handed work, according to a recent report from Plan International.

    Handling burley tobacco leaves without gloves, in unwashed clothes and rarely bathing, these children can absorb the same amount of nicotine in one day of harvesting that they would from smoking 50 cigarettes.

    According to Mussa, the government has been hard at work with UNICEF for the past two years to eliminate child labor and has made substantial progress. "No estate-owner has ever employed children age five to 14," he added.

    In 2007 UNICEF estimated that 29 percent of children ages five to 14-years-old in Malawi worked, and that the majority of those children worked in agriculture.

    There are more than 30,000 smallholder farmers in tobacco production and the crop contributes 70 percent of foreign exchange and 30 percent of GDP, according to the government Web site.

    Figures aside, the pictures speak for themselves, showing that the danger of nicotine poisoning is real and that better regulation and monitoring is needed.

    As well as exploitative conditions, the children described repeated physical and sexual abuse from their supervisors.

    Many of the kids also complained of "sticky stuff" from the stalks that they could not wash off their hands because they had no access to soap or water, according to Glynis Clacherty, who interviewed the children first-hand for the Plan report.

    The 44 children she interviewed were working full-time on both large estates and small family farms, but none were working for their own families, and 36 of them were orphans. The main reason the children gave for working was poverty: lack of food, clothing or money to go to school were frequently cited.

    When you have growers that are working under contract to larger companies, in industries such as tobacco, sugar or flowers, the contract is made with the adults, who in turn use their families to reach a quota or get a livable income."

    In recent years multinational tobacco corporations have been rapidly shifting farming production away from rich countries like the United States. Nearly 75 percent of tobacco production is now done in developing countries such as Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, China, Brazil and India.

    Re-location to poorer states by multinational firms increases the demand for all types of labor their, not just that of children, according to Professor Margaret McMillan of Tufts University. If anything, she argues, increased investment can actually bring higher salaries and improved monitoring of abuse.

    有人認為全世界有千千萬萬的孩子在煙草場做全職，他們暴露在大量的有毒的尼古丁下，在備受辱罵的勞動環境中遭受苦難。

    據估計，單單在馬拉維在煙草收獲的季節，就有78000少男少女被雇傭在農場干活。據最新報道他們平均一天工作12小時，徒手工作累得腰都要斷了才能掙得17分。

    穿著沒洗的衣服，也很少洗澡， 不戴手套， 徒手摘淺色煙草的葉子，在煙草收獲季節，這些孩子一天能夠吸進的尼古丁就等于他們抽50支香煙所含的尼古丁量。

    據Mussa 說，在最近兩年政府和已經在致力于禁用童工而且已經取得了實質性的進展。他還說，"已經沒有任何農場主雇傭5至14的孩童了。"

    在2007 年聯合國兒童基金會統計在馬拉維有百分之29的5至14歲的孩童作過童工，他們中大多數從事農業方面的工作。依據政府網站資料，有300多小型農場主從事煙草生產，他們的產量占外匯總量的百分之70,占國民生產總值的百分之30.

    下邊的圖片說明了一切，它們表明尼古丁中毒的危險是確實存在的，而且對此事的更好的調整和監控是需要的。

 

    這些被描述的孩子不斷地受到來自監工的體罰和性虐待，而且是在遭受剝削的情況下。

    Glynis Calchery 采訪了那些孩子們 ,為Plan report獲得了第一手資料，據她說，其中許多孩子也抱怨說葉莖上的粘乎的東西。因為用不到肥皂和水，他們不能夠洗去這些粘乎的東西。

    她采訪的44個孩子都正在各個大小煙草場做全職，但沒有一個在為自己的家里做事，他們中36個是孤兒。這些孩子說出工作的理由是貧窮：缺衣少食，缺少去讀書的錢是人們經常引用的話語。

    當你有栽培人，他們在與更大的工業方面的公司，比如，煙草，糖業，和花卉業，簽約后正在為合同工作，合同是與成人簽的，這些成人反過來利用他們的家人來達到一個分額或者給他們一份過得去的收入。

    今年來，跨國煙草公司快速地一直在將出產從富國比如美國轉移出去。進百分之75的煙草出產在發展中國家，比如馬拉維，坦桑尼亞，津巴布韋，中國，巴西和印度。

    據Tufts 大學Margaret McMillan 教授說，跨國公司重新將產地放置于更窮的國家增加了對各種類型的勞力的需求，不僅僅是童工。她辯論說，如果有區別的話，增加的投資實際上能夠帶來更高的薪水和濫用改進了的監控。