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.

    有人认为全世界有千千万万的孩子在烟草场做全职，他们暴露在大量的有毒的尼古丁下，在备受辱骂的劳动环境中遭受苦难。

    据估计，单单在马拉维在烟草收获的季节，就有78000少男少女被雇佣在农场干活。据最新报道他们平均一天工作12小时，徒手工作累得腰都要断了才能挣得17分。

    穿着没洗的衣服，也很少洗澡， 不戴手套， 徒手摘浅色烟草的叶子，在烟草收获季节，这些孩子一天能够吸进的尼古丁就等于他们抽50支香烟所含的尼古丁量。

    据Mussa 说，在最近两年政府和已经在致力于禁用童工而且已经取得了实质性的进展。他还说，"已经没有任何农场主雇佣5至14的孩童了。"

    在2007 年联合国儿童基金会统计在马拉维有百分之29的5至14岁的孩童作过童工，他们中大多数从事农业方面的工作。依据政府网站资料，有300多小型农场主从事烟草生产，他们的产量占外汇总量的百分之70,占国民生产总值的百分之30.

    下边的图片说明了一切，它们表明尼古丁中毒的危险是确实存在的，而且对此事的更好的调整和监控是需要的。

 

    这些被描述的孩子不断地受到来自监工的体罚和性虐待，而且是在遭受剥削的情况下。

    Glynis Calchery 采访了那些孩子们 ,为Plan report获得了第一手资料，据她说，其中许多孩子也抱怨说叶茎上的粘乎的东西。因为用不到肥皂和水，他们不能够洗去这些粘乎的东西。

    她采访的44个孩子都正在各个大小烟草场做全职，但没有一个在为自己的家里做事，他们中36个是孤儿。这些孩子说出工作的理由是贫穷：缺衣少食，缺少去读书的钱是人们经常引用的话语。

    当你有栽培人，他们在与更大的工业方面的公司，比如，烟草，糖业，和花卉业，签约后正在为合同工作，合同是与成人签的，这些成人反过来利用他们的家人来达到一个分额或者给他们一份过得去的收入。

    今年来，跨国烟草公司快速地一直在将出产从富国比如美国转移出去。进百分之75的烟草出产在发展中国家，比如马拉维，坦桑尼亚，津巴布韦，中国，巴西和印度。

    据Tufts 大学Margaret McMillan 教授说，跨国公司重新将产地放置于更穷的国家增加了对各种类型的劳力的需求，不仅仅是童工。她辩论说，如果有区别的话，增加的投资实际上能够带来更高的薪水和滥用改进了的监控。