Global Tobacco Giant Pledges to Root Out Child Labor

It's not often the human rights community celebrates a victory in Kazakhstan, but this week offers an opportunity with news that global tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) has – under international pressure – committed itself to improving conditions for migrant workers on tobacco farms in Kazakhstan.

The news comes nearly a year after Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a damning expose of the conditions tobacco pickers were suffering in Kazakhstan, with many working in what HRW described as “virtual bondage.” The watchdog found abuses including the “frequent use” of child labor (it documented 72 cases, including children as young as 10) and cases of forced labor.

PMI has now declared itself “committed to achieving safe and fair working conditions on all farms from which it sources tobacco and to progressively eliminate child labor and other labor abuses where they are found."

It also pledged to implement an Agricultural Labor Practices Code, regulating working hours and salaries and obliging farmers to ensure fair treatment, safe working conditions and the right to collective bargaining for their employees.

PMI is working on this with the international NGO Verite, which on May 2 issued a report sponsored by the tobacco company on labor conditions on Kazakhstan’s tobacco farms.

That report shows that “many challenges remain,” Martin King, PMI Senior Vice President Operations, said, while professing himself “pleased with the progress that has been made in Kazakhstan.”

HRW welcomed the news in a press release. “Philip Morris International's commitments to ensure protection of workers, including migrant workers, in Kazakhstan and in more than 30 other countries, is profoundly significant," Jane Buchanan, senior Europe and Central Asia researcher was quoted as saying.

HRW also cautioned that enforcement and monitoring of the commitments were vital.

The international human rights community can hail this as a stellar example of watchdogs applying successful pressure on global companies to root out abuses. In Kazakhstan, though, one question remains: What is the government doing to protect well-documented and frequent abuses of the rights of migrant workers?