This month's issue of Geographical features a dossier on child labour in the tobacco industry.
Despite cigarette consumption dropping globally, their manufacture is still one of the world's most profitable industries. In Indonesia alone, the tobacco industry is estimated to be worth $23.8bn in 2019, and child labour, in Indonesia and over 100 other countries, has become entwined with this industry.
But it is not just developing countries where child labour is a problem. According to Human Rights Watch, in the US, the world's fourth largest tobacco producer, weak labour laws and regulations allows children as young as 12 to be hired to work unlimited hours on farms of any size - including tobacco farms - so long as they don't miss school. Globally, although the precise number of children working in the tobacco industry is unknown, it is thought to be in the tens of millions.
Other articles this month feature a look at the current situation in Eritrea since the peace agreement with Ethiopia; a gallery extract from Our Planet – the book which accompanies David Attenborough’s new Netflix documentary; and a spotlight on female oyster farmers in Kasarogod in western India.
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