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Zimbabwe’s Booming Tobacco-Farming Sector Tainted by Use of Child Labor

Tobacco farming in Zimbabwe is booming, buoyed by the growing demand for tobacco in China, but experts are raising concerns over the rampant use of child labor on tobacco farms.
Zimbabwe’s Booming Tobacco-Farming Sector Tainted by Use of Child Labor
Tobacco at one of Zimbabwe's tobacco auction floors in Harare, Zimbabwe. Kenneth Matimaire
Andrew Mambondiyani
|Updated:

MUTARE, Zimbabwe—Tobacco farming in Zimbabwe is booming, buoyed by the growing demand for tobacco in China, but experts are raising concerns over the rampant use of child labor on tobacco farms.

Up to 166,000 mostly small-scale farmers have registered to grow the crop during the 2018–2019 farming season, up from 103,000 the previous season, according to Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board.

Andrew Mambondiyani
Andrew Mambondiyani
contributor
Andrew Mambondiyani is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe with more than 10 years of journalism experience. He served as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT between 2010 and 2011, and in 2008 served as a Middleburry College Environment Journalism Fellow. His journalism has appeared in various local and international publications, including BBC, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Yale E360, IPs, Think Africa Press, SciDev.net, Centrepoint Now, Opendemocracy.net, and The Zimbabwean. He has a special interest in climate change, agriculture, human rights, sustainable development, and the environment in general.
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