Alleged Violations of Tobacco Control and Other Laws

Tobacco companies aggressively block, weaken, and undermine policies designed to protect public health and reduce tobacco use, and at times they may work outside of countries’ laws. In multiple cases tobacco companies have been found guilty of violating laws to ensure they are as profitable as possible.

In Mexico, children as young as 11 years old, below the minimum age for children to work, were found working in tobacco fields that source tobacco for British American Tobacco in Mexico.

The big tobacco companies said exploitative child labor is unacceptable and that they were working hard to stop it happening in their supply chains. The president of the industry-aligned tobacco growers’ association stated child labor was “virtually eradicated”. However the Guardian found children working on 7 of 10 plantations visited. An ad hoc survey of 10 children the Guardian spoke with revealed they all help in the fields after school – a few in the morning too.