ANB-BIA SUPPLEMENT

ISSUE/EDITION Nr 327 - 01/07/1997

Malawi

Slavery in the Malawi Tobacco Industry

by Patrick Mawaya, Malawi, April 1997

THEME = HUMAN RIGHTS

INTRODUCTION

The Tenancy System as practised in Malawi today, is a worse form of Thangata
which the government vowed to abolish

Thangata is a system whereby workers work more hours for less pay and sometimes for no pay at all. According to a report compiled by the Malawi Congress of Trade Unions (MCTU), Thangata still exists. MCTU says: "The government's negligence to deal with the problem, reflects its lack of concern for the country's workers. We feel that the government should deal with the Tenancy System problem as a matter of urgency".

A form of slavery
Malawi, previously called Nyasaland, was seventy years under colonial rule. It has now completed almost thirty-three years of Independence. However, the country continues to experience the same form of slavery which was prevalent during the time of the Jumbes and Mlozis, who were involved in the slave trade. According to MCTU, "It is disappointing to note that the Tobacco Industry in Malawi is perpetuating slavery, in the form of a tenancy system. This has been observed in Nkhota-kota district, about 200 km North East of the capital, Lilongwe".
Tobacco is Malawi's largest export crop. Then comes tea and sugar. Other tobacco estates are found in the Central Region.

Observation
MCTU visited tobacco estates in Nkhota-kota from 13 to 15 January this year, and observed that there were tenants in dire situations. This has to be brought to the attention of the whole nation.
Tenants are denied certain basic rights including freedom of movement, of association and of expression. Harassment, exploitation and oppression of the so-called "tenants", is the order of the day. Landlords actually own human beings but call them "tenants". The truth is that these same tenants are neither tenants nor labourers, but people denied their basic rights - in sharp contradiction to Malawi's Constitution which guarantees the individual's fundamental human rights. (Chapter IV in the new Constitution).

No collective voice
The MCTU says the tenants have no collective voice to face up either to their landlords or to the Tobacco Association of Malawi (TAMA), under which the landlords are organised. If the tenants try to organise themselves to claim their rights, they are badly treated by their landlords. The landlords cheat in tobacco-sale prices and refuse to listen to their tenants' complaints. The power to negotiate prices and to set prices, lies in the landlords' hands. The tenants produce the tobacco but cannot decide the selling prices.

Health, malnutrition, lack of education
The tenants have no protection or social facilities. The estate owners do not provide clinics, and when the tenants get sick, they are not taken to the hospital but left to fend for themselves. Food insecurity in Malawi is a major problem and malnutrition is felt especially by the under-fives, by pregnant and nursing mothers. Tenants are not given enough food, and when they are provided with food, the frequency is at the landlord's discretion. There is massive child abuse on these tobacco estates. Children between the ages of five and sixteen have to weed and harvest the tobacco crop. Therefore, they can't always get to school.

The Church intervenes
The tenants' situation has attracted the attention from various parties. The Catholic Diocese of Lilongwe through Nkhota-kota parish has attempted to organise the tenants into an association. Yet this move was looked on as "sinister" by the landlords, as well as by the government.
The Malawi Congress of Trade Unions say it has information that "government has purposely and deliberately instructed all concerned, to keep a tight lip on the tenants' issue. Moreover, it is clear that nothing has been done to carry out the terms of the 1995 Tenant Labour Protection Act.

Recommendations
After a visit to the Nkhota-Kota estates, the Malawi Congress of Trade Unions, made the following recommendations:

- 1. The MCTU will go ahead and organise the tenants into a union with immediate effect

- 2. That there be a tripartite meeting between TAMA, the government and the MCTU to come up with a policy regarding the tenant system in Malawi

- 3. The Tenant Labour Protection Act must be put into practice as soon as possible

- 4. The government must determine appropriate prices to be paid by the landlords, for the tobacco sold to them by their tenants. It is recognised that this might be contrary to the market liberalisation policy which Malawi is following at the moment.

- 5. The incidence of child labour on the estates must be properly researched, so as to come up with appropriate remedies.

- 6. The whole question of Malawi's Tenancy System, must be looked into.

END

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