December 4, 2019
Legal action against British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the world’s largest tobacco firms, could see the company punished for profiting from child labor and force the industry to finally confront its treatment of vulnerable workers.
The case, brought by human rights lawyers on behalf of hundreds of tenant farmers and their children in Malawi, contends that the company is guilty of “unjust enrichment.” Martyn Day, a senior partner at Leigh Day, the firm bringing the case, told The Guardian that the tenant farmers cultivating tobacco for one of BAT’s main suppliers are paid so little and the work involved is so labor intensive that they are forced to rely on help from their children.
Read more: Human Rights Watch
