Sheperd :
My name is Sheperd Dewe, I'm twelve years old, I'm a fourth year. After I'm done with school, I go home. I have lunch and meet my parents in tobacco fields.

In the crops, we pick the leaves up, we put them together and we put them on sticks to dry out.

Expert off
"Smoking kills.
It doesn't only kill smokers, it also kills people who make cigarettes. It kills the people who make them, it kills their hopes and their dreams. Their dignity is lost, through the production process of cigarettes, for the western market."

COM
Most cigarettes smoked in France contain tobacco from Malawi, the fifth tobacco producer in the world.

Eighty thousand children are enslaved by a worldwide addiction and get intoxicated while working in the fields.

Live : you're late. Who? Sheperd. Where do we pile the leaves? At the end of the row.

COM
Sheperd, lives with his family in the North of the country, in an area where tobacco is cultivated.
During the rainy season, he cuts, picks up and sorts.
By his side, his sister Jesse, and some of the village kids. They are between nine and fourteen years old.

Lymond, Sheperd's dad, owns two hectares of plantations. He started growing Burley tobacco thinking he would earn money and get out of corn agriculture.
But his dreams quickly turned into a nightmare.

Lymond
I started planting tobacco in 2009. Growning tobacco is very tiring. It doesn't make a lot of money but it is a lot of work. We do it because we have no choice but it doesn't bring in enough money.

COM
(Leave first two shots for a while)
Tobacco production is long, and tedious.
It requires three times the workforce than corn and the earnings are too little to do without child labour.

Lymond, Sheperd's dad
Around fourteen people work at my farm. There are four men. The others are women and kids. They pick leafs up and sew them together.
As  dad, I explained to my kids how to sew tobacco in packages of four leafs. The first should be turn inside, the second the other way around and so on. It keeps them from rotting. My son learned to do that in 2010, and my daughter in 2009.

COM
In Malawi, child labor under fourteen years old is officially forbidden. But for Sheperd's mother, Josepha, it is the only way to sustain for the family.

Josepha
Kids from the village help us on week-ends and holidays. I pay them seventy cents of euro.
They pick up and sew the leaves. They also help us after school. We need them to finish the work in time. So we make a little money from cultivating tobacco. The goal is to have enough money to buy food. Without the kids, we wouldn't make it and the tobacco would rot.

Expert
In Malawi, tobacco culture is part of the country's development. It's a good thing that Malawi has something to export. But those involved in this dull production really are imprisoned in misery.  They have no way to get out of it. It highly impoverishes them.

II FERTILIZERS

You know where the big plates are? I need some to cover the food.
There are two at home.
I think someone borrowed them but I can't recall.

COM
The country, one of the poorest in the world, depends mainly on the green gold culture. It represents more than 60% of its exports.
The leaders of the companies British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco, take advantage of this dependence by loaning money to small peasants for fertilizers and pesticides. They encourage them to start growing tobacco.

A  bag of fertilizer costs around fifteen dollars, a small fortune for a farmer.
Josepha got a loan to buy six of them this year.

Doomed to produce tobacco, the family has stopped cultivating corn.

Josepha
We have loans only for tobacco fertilizers and we are told to manage things ourselves to buy corn fertilizers.
This year, we produced only two bags of corn. The corn we eat, we now have to buy it.

COM
Ironically enough, with the  money from tobacco, farmers can buy the corn they are no longueur planting.

Sheperd's family produces near to 1500 kilos of tobacco, but once they pay the loans back, they are left with 200 dollars a year.

Parents, kids and grandparents all live under the same roof, modestly. Without water and electricity.

But each year, encouraged by the tobacco industry, they believe a better life will be possible.


III TENANTS

The situation is way more difficult for peasants who don't own any land. Tenants of a plot have to sell their harvest to the landlord for little money, in exchange for food and accommodation.
At the bottom of the production line, farmers like Swafi are the biggest victims of the system.

Swafi
My name is Swafi, I'm from Machinga, in the South of the country and I arrived in 2004. I came to work in a tobacco plantation to try to better my living conditions. But things aren't getting better at all. We have no choice, it is the only work illiterate people like us can have.  Cultivating seems to be the only option. We've always done that.
We have a deal with the landlord. I have to cultivate tobacco on a defined land. And each year, I'm paid according to what I produce. It's done that way. We don't know what price he'll buy the production, before the beginning of the auction. Some good years, I can earn between 40 and 100 dollars. We have one income for the whole family.

COM
There are six of them sharing these yearly 100 dollars. Even kids of the family are working to make the most of the plot.
This system of lease agreement enables production costs to be reduced. On some big farms owned by local elite, the landlords take advantage of their tenants instability.

Decrypteur
To begin with, tenants live and work in awful conditions. It's common that landlords scam them when buying tobacco because there are no regulation.
Some tenants are victims of sexual abuse in the plantations. We also know of human trafficking. People are kidnapped to come and work at the plantation. Usually, kidnappings happen by night, with the help of an accomplice.

COM
The authorities of the country turn a blind eye to the situation, for the sake of its economy.

But tobacco doesn't only cause socio-economic troubles. The farmers also put their health in jeopardy.

Manipulating tobacco with bare hands makes them absorb the equivalent of fifty cigarettes of nicotine a day through their skin.

Children, with their small bodies, are more affected by the "green tobacco disease", a poisoning that causes dizziness, nausea, headache and muscular weakness.

Peasants are also exposed to serious neurological problems caused by the use of pesticides and fertilizers so harmful that some are prohibited from  sale in Europe.

But farmers like Lymond have no idea of the risks they are exposed to, and of the impact of tobacco on their kids development.

Lymond
I never smoked a cigarette in my whole life. I never intended to smoke but I grow tobacco to try to earn my living. Our farming counsellors told us that if we smoke we could have cancer and other sickness. I think there is no problem with tobacco, as long as you don't smoke it.

COM
Here, no doctor seems to know about the green tobacco disease. No one is studying the issue in the country.
We have to leave Sheperd village and drive 150 kilometers south to meet Doctor Chimbetete.

He's working in a private hospital in Kasungu, in the middle of the tobacco plantations.

Doctor's testimony
I have been working here for almost fifteen years. In reality, people have no idea of what is going on. If they had known, they would realize their problems are due to culture of tobacco, that is to say, coughing, sneezing, headaches and pain in the body. They would realize what they cultivate is noxious.
I think that as doctor, it is our job to inform them. We cannot hide the truth from them anymore. But the problem in Malawy is that a lot of money is at stake in tobacco. We often forget there is also a lot of workforce. People see the positive side of cultivating tobacco but not the downside effects.

COM
Harmful effects from tobacco culture have an impact at all the stages of production. After harvesting and drying, tobacco leafs must be selected to make mackages. Men, women, childen of all ages shut themselves in those warehouses without any ventilation for hours a day. The air, filled with tobacco particles, is unbreathable.

This young woman has been coming  with her baby, every day for two weeks. She makes less than forty eurocents a day.

Farmers live, eat and sleep  in homes infiltrated with tobacco. Four months a year, families sleep near the tobacco.


V SCHOOL

COM
(after she says put your shorts on) Despite the instability of their situation, Josepha tries to send her kids to school, even if it isn't mandatory.

(her daughter in the middle) Sheperd goes to school every morning. Even if primary school is free, just leaving the crops is already a loss.

Most kids miss classes, and don't make progress. Teachers see the headcounts of their class fluctuating according to the season.

ITW of the teacher
The number of pupils has diminished because the community is facing issues. Some parents have too much work, especially during tobacco harvesting season. They can prevent the kids from going to school. Sometimes, they don't have enough food and they endure malnutrition. So some kids come to school with an empty stomach.

COM
A third of the country's population is illiterate. In such a context, evolution perspectives are small.
Often children are condemned to reproduce their parent's lives.

In this life of labour between crops and school, there is little space for playing games and being carefree.

Live song there is twelve months in a year.

IV NGO

COM
Malawi ratified several international conventions.
The new president Joyce Banda promised to apply the legislation forbidding child labour. But in the field, nothing has been done yet. Economic stakes are too important and neither the government, nor international buyers have interest in letting go this cheap workforce go.

Expert
Of course, authorities see people making kids work. But there is no clear regulation, and no real penalty, so everyone thinks this is normal. No one ever had a bill because they have made a kid work, preventing him from going to school and making him risk his life.

COM
(wait song)

Some NGOs try to fight the phenomenon.
This local association came to the north of the country 5 years ago.

Social workers support kids on a daily basis and try to alert the families. They have little means but the information work starts to be rewarding.

-We are here to take some news of your kids. We want to know how they are and if they're in good health.
- Thanks, kids are fine. The small ones caught but all are fine.
- And in other families, it's harvesting season for tobacco and corn, how is it going?
-It's true that since you're here, we saw some changes. More people realize it isn't good to make the kids work before they go to school.

COM
When he heard about the association, King Size, a child from the village went there alone to ask for help from the social workers.

King size
My name is Kingsiez Kamwaka. I come from a village named Tomasi and I'm thirteen years old. My dad wakes me up very early in the morning and I have to harvest ten rows before I go to school. Working in the crops is very tiring, it makes us sick and the day after, we can't go to school. At night, I have to meet my parents to sew the leafs together and I have no time to play with my friends.
Now, my dad changed his behaviour, he lets me time to play with my friends and he's nicer to my mom.

COM
This NGO rare in the country, in that it is not directly sponsorised by the tobacco industry.

In their ethnical charter, every tobacco company condemns child work. To guarantee their good faith and regain prestige, they finance most of the rehabilitation reschooling programs for the tobacco kids.

Decrypteur
In fact, their involvement is an illusion. The problem remains and nothing is solved. They finance these programs to clear their conscience and show they're fighting against child labor.
By buying and reselling their product on the market, they make a lot of profits. But what they give to these social organization is ridiculous compared to the profit they make. Whereas depriving kids from a future has no cost.

COM
More than a few educational programs, it is the whole production system that needs to be made efficient without child labour.
Malawi's future needs more crop diversification and its farmers to adapt.

Some initiatives, like this tea plantation, try to open the way towards respecting the employees and the environment.

Here child labour is forbidden.

Marita, a young mother from the South, has been working in this plantation of 8000 hectares, for 3 years.

Marita
I have 5 kids. I work on the plantation and I can provide for them with the money I earn here.
I'm doing a lot better that those who work in tobacco because, often, their kids don't even go to school.

VII TEA

COM
3000 labourers work on this fair trade farm. Marita picks up tea leaves eight hours a day and makes three times more money that a tobacco worker.

Marita
I dream of so many things, I want to buy a bike, build a house, buy a radio with the money I make here.
If I work hard enough, I will be able to make my dreams come true. I've working as a tea collector for three years.

COM
For these workers, working in the fair trade company is a chance. They all have a 5 year contract, a union to defend them, the plantation has its own clinic and its own school. All workers are fed on the work site.

Marita
I like at Kasenga in a house that belongs to the company? I work here to help my family and better our living conditions.

COM
Her kids go to school right near the house and her husband, also a tea picker, works on the plantation.

Things are going better for us. Before, we weren't able to save money because we were underpaid. We decided to come here and change our situation. I feel I have more chance that people working in tobacco because they get paid after sells season, and I get paid monthly.

COM
The company now produces three and a half million kilos of tea per year and sells its production to fair-trade brands in Europe. Today, it encourages peasants to diversity and to replace tobacco with tea as an income crop.

Human resources director
We could have more factories and neighbour communities could sell us their production. This culture would benefit to all peasants in the North. But there is a need for a political will from he government. It is the only possible way out for Malawi.

VIII AUCTIONS

COM
For now, the government continues to give priority to the tobacco production to raise the stocks in cash.
Over the last three years, the production has brought in around 50 millions dollars a year.

In Lilongwe, the capital, when the auction ceremony opened, the president Joyce Banda reaffirmed her priorities.

TV There is a big demand for yellow tobacco in the world. My government continues to encourage air-dried tobacco production.

COM
The event is transmitted on local medias. The whole country lives according to the price fluctuations.

During 4 months, bags from all around the country are brought to the place where the auction takes place for more than 4 months. Around 180 000 tons of tobacco are produced each year in Malawi.

Almost all the production will be bought by its three main buyers : British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco.

They have three seconds per bag to decide.

"Live auctions"

The marathon between rows lasts for several hours and more than 8000 bags can be bought in just one day. The bottom price fixed by the Malawi tobacco Commission is very low.

Expert
With this lease-agreement, small producers have no right on tobacco prices. Industries buy it the price they want. Our tobacco is the cheapest in the market. Because industrial buyers decide of everything and the system counts on a cheap workforce. It's the cheapest workforce you can find. Even cheapest that the neighbours: Zimbabwe or Zambie.

COM
A kilo of Malawi Burley tobacco is sold 50 cents, three times cheaper than in Zimbabwe. Prices are fixed in dollars but producers are paid in local money.

Powerless, some peasants see their work being sold for almost nothing.

ITV small producer
They tell us what to do and we do it. We do it because we have money issues. But our tobacco isn't important enough on the market. So we have no way out. We have no hope. We have a hard time sending our kids to school.

COM
On the other side of the room, farmers who contracted a loan at the beginning of the season are really left out. They have to give their whole harvest to their creditor, without auctioning it. A bargain for the buyers who can fix rate even lower.

There should be another solution. In Chichewa, we say : "Life should be smooth on both sides", I should be happy and the buyer too.

COM
Anti-tobacco campaigns are successful in the Western world and they threaten Malawi's economy.
In three years, profits from tobacco have dropped by 50%.
A worrying situation that should encourage the country to diversify its agriculture and ban child labour.