Tobacco children in Indonesia – level 3

Thirteen-year-old Maryam is among thousands of children who work in hazardous conditions on farms in the world's fifth biggest producer of tobacco. She works with her bare hands on a family-owned farm and suffers from “green tobacco sickness” – an acute nicotine poisoning.

She says she feels dizzy, gets aches and gets sick.

Hiring children under 15 years of age in Indonesia is illegal, but children are often not directly hired by traders or companies. They skip school or drop out altogether in order to help their families make a living – many only making the equivalent of a dollar a day.

But human rights groups are trying to change things. Human Rights Watch has reached out to some of the biggest companies operating in Indonesia, asking them to educate the families about the dangers of this work. The Indonesian government, which says it is working on the issue. 

It is estimated over 1.5 million children are working in Indonesia's agricultural sector – mainly in tobacco, rubber and palm oil plantations. 

Difficult words: nausea (a feeling of sickness), dizzy (weak, not feeling well), spell (a short period of time), hazardous (dangerous), bundle (to tie or roll up together), stakeholder (a person or organisation who takes care of something), issue (a problem), sector (a part of an economy), ratify (to agree to formally), treaty (an agreement, a deal, a pact).

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