Tobacco and UN human rights conventions
A human rights perspective on the tobacco issue
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the world. Applying a human rights perspective to the tobacco issue gives us a unique opportunity to demand accountability from our leaders on the tobacco issue.
International human rights work is based on the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The rights contained in the Declaration have subsequently been incorporated and further developed in a number of conventions that are binding on the states that have signed them. Together, they constitute a universal framework for human rights work.
Sweden has ratified all core conventions, of which the following are particularly interesting for tobacco prevention work:
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
- Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
- Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
When we combine the tobacco convention with the above core conventions, we find obvious arguments for why our leaders have an obligation to introduce laws and strategies aimed at ending the tobacco epidemic. Smoking has a direct negative impact on a wide range of human rights, here are some examples:
Right to life:
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death.
Right to health:
Article 12 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:
“The States Parties to the Convention recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.”
Read more about tobacco and health inequalities here.
Read more about the health consequences of smoking here.
Childrens Rights:
Several articles in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are relevant to tobacco prevention work, such as articles 2, 6 and 24. Read more about tobacco and children's rights here.
For children in tobacco production, their right to education is violated, which is confirmed by three articles:
Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
“Everyone has the right to education.”
Article 13 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights:
“The States Parties to the Convention recognize the right of everyone to education.”
Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child:
“The States Parties to the Convention recognize the child’s right to education.”
Women's rights:
Article 12 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women:
“States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in relation to health care, in order to ensure, on a basis of equality between men and women, access to health care.” Read more about tobacco and women's rights here.
Minority group rights:
The tobacco industry often targets its marketing to specific minority groups, and within several of these groups, tobacco use is at levels well above average. Examples include LGBTQ people, indigenous peoples, and other minority ethnicities.
Read about how the tobacco industry targets the LGBT community.
Read more about Tobacco and health inequalities
What should be done?
- The fact that tobacco is a human rights issue must be emphasized and highlighted in all tobacco prevention work, to make those in power understand that it is their obligation to act to protect their citizens.
- The reporting mechanisms that exist for human rights should be used to a greater extent to demand accountability on the tobacco issue.
- More resources are needed to provide legal assistance, training and support to opinion leaders on how to use the human rights framework as a case for more tobacco control measures.
The child perspective: hazardous child labor and school absence
Child labor on tobacco plantations
Most tobacco-producing countries have laws regulating child labor, and the majority of them have also signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The big tobacco companies claim to combat child labor. Despite this, over half a million children work on tobacco plantations worldwide.
Child labor is not a phenomenon unique to the tobacco sector, but children on tobacco plantations are particularly at risk due to the health hazards that tobacco farming poses. Child labor is widespread in major tobacco-producing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
Fact box
“States Parties recognize the right of the child to protection from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be harmful or to interfere with the child’s education or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.”
Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In addition to this type of child labor, there are also cases where children work in the fields to pay off their parents' debt to the plantation owner. The parents may have died or become ill and the responsibility for tobacco cultivation is then transferred to the children. In some cases, children are also sent away from home to work in the tobacco fields, or they have ended up there as a result of their parents having died and they have become orphans. The children try to earn a little money so that they and their siblings can survive or are "taken care of" by plantation owners and tobacco growers who let the children work for their own profit.
Little opportunity to attend school
Children working in tobacco fields often have little opportunity to complete their primary education. In some areas, access to schools is still a problem, or the family cannot afford the costs of schooling. But even in countries where primary education is free, children are often not sent to school because the family cannot afford the extra labor, or because the plantation owner or parents require the children to work, especially during the peak season. Most of those working in tobacco are poor smallholders who have not attended school and therefore have poor literacy skills. This is often the reality for the next generation in the family. Children in tobacco fields therefore have little chance of escaping poverty and working on tobacco plantations.
Children get injured and sick
Children working in tobacco fields are particularly vulnerable because their contracts, if any, often do not provide them with protective clothing, medical care or time off. Growing tobacco requires large amounts of toxic pesticides. The toxins used in tobacco farming can cause cancer, respiratory problems, depression, damage to hearing, vision, liver, kidneys and the central nervous system. Handling the tobacco leaves themselves can lead to nicotine poisoning as nicotine is absorbed through the skin. Children are much more sensitive to these toxins and their harmful effects than adults, as their bodies are not yet fully developed.
This text produced by A Non Smoking Generation
The gender perspective: women in tobacco farming are economically, health-wise and socially vulnerable
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The gender perspective: women in tobacco farming are economically, health-wise and socially vulnerable
Tobacco is grown in 125 countries on an area of 4,3 million hectares and employs 17 million people, mainly in low- and middle-income countries.
Tobacco farming is extremely labor-intensive, and because the tobacco industry pays poorly for the tobacco leaves, the work is often done by unpaid family members. The women in these families are therefore devoting themselves to growing tobacco instead of growing food or other crops.
Tobacco cultivation relies on women's work, women who also take responsibility for family and household. They perform tasks such as pulling up plants, irrigating, spraying pesticides, weeding, harvesting the plants and sorting them after harvest.
Health risks include pesticide poisoning, green tobacco sickness. There are examples of women who worked in the tobacco fields while pregnant and had malformed children.
Women's ability to make decisions related to tobacco farming varies around the world. In China, women have a fairly high level of decision-making power, while in many African countries, women rarely have the opportunity to negotiate and sign contracts with tobacco companies. They rarely have their own bank accounts and cannot receive payments from tobacco companies.
Source: unfairtobacco.org/
The International Network of Women Against Tobacco is an international network of women working for tobacco control. Tobacco Facts' tobacco expert Margaretha Haglund is one of the women in the network and was its chair from 1997–2006.
