Geneva, March 23, 2018 - The Governing Body of the ILO yesterday closed without reaching a consensus on whether to continue its partnership with the tobacco sector in the fight against child labor.
“Improving labor practices in our grower communities is a key priority for our Company”, says Elaine McKay, JTI’s Social Programs Director. “We regret that the hugely positive impact of our current partnership – taking over 30’000 children out of the fields since 2011 – is being jeopardized by the WHO’s FCTC Secretariat and other anti-tobacco activists. Over the past two years, they have constantly distorted and influenced the debate with unfounded allegations, prioritizing politics over concrete solutions to today’s child labor issues. This has been counterproductive and ignoring the real victims of this debate: children and workers in the tobacco sector, but also tobacco growing communities as a whole”. [...]