Malawi’s constitutional court has suspended its requirement that lawyers and judges wear traditional white wigs and black robes in the courtroom as an early season heatwave sweeps the southern African nation.
Temperatures in some parts of the country have hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) this week, the country’s Department of Meteorological Services said.
Malawi, a former British protectorate, still follows the British legal system, with the wearing of wigs and robes a requirement for judges and lawyers.
But Chikosa Silungwe, one of the lawyers in court this week in the capital, Lilongwe, said the heatwave was making the court’s work challenging.
“It’s simple really. The heatwave this week meant that the gowns and wigs were uncomfortable,” he said in a telephone interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
He was he wasn’t ready to attribute the excessive heat to climate change, noting “that’s stretching it too far.”
But Jolamu Nkhokwe, Malawi’s director of climate change and meteorological services, said that while a range of factors contribute to higher temperatures, “the big suspect of this heatwave is climate change.”
“The (temperature) figures within their respective areas are higher than what is always expected during this time of the year,” as the southern hemisphere heads toward summer, he said.
Agnes Patemba, the registrar for the country’s high court and a judicial spokeswoman, said the lifting of the wig and gown requirement, which began Wednesday, was a temporary measure.
“There is a heatwave and that has compelled the court to indeed do away with wigs and gowns. It is not the first time this has been done,” Patemba said in an interview.
Malawi’s high court is currently hearing a petition brought by the country’s political opposition seeking to nullify this year’s elections, which it says were marred by irregularities.
The country’s ministry of health has issued a press statement warning of heat risks and urging people to take precautions.
Reporting by Charles Pensulo ; editing by Laurie Goering – Thomson Reuters Foundation
The United States on Friday suspended imports of all tobacco and tobacco products from Malawi for alleged forced labor practices — including child labor.Customs and Border Protection, which holds the authority to detain imports, has recently ramped up its efforts to hold companies and suppliers accountable for forced labor practices.
Children working in tobacco farms in Malawi
The agency issued a “Withhold Release Order” on tobacco from Malawi on Friday, allowing it to detain goods believed to have been produced with forced labor.”Malawi tobacco is one of those areas where we are trying to send a message,” CBP Office Of Trade Executive Assistant Commissioner Brenda Smith told CNN.Forced labor in Malawi has been well documented. Despite some advancement in preventing child labor, children in Malawi are still engaged in the worst forms of child labor, including in the harvesting of tobacco and in commercial sexual exploitation, according to the US Department of Labor.
Children working with tobacco risk illness from nicotine absorption, including “green tobacco sickness,” the Labor Department states. They are also exposed to pesticides, chemicals, and harsh weather conditions.This type of enforcement is rare for the US, but has significantly increased over the past few years.The detainment order against Malawi tobacco is the seventh this year, the most the US has issued since the early 1990s when a number were issued against Chinese companies.
The US has had a prohibition on the import of goods produced using forced labor since the early 1930s, but enforcement was extremely sparse. A 2016 change in the law ending exceptions, along with increased awareness and a push by then-CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske spurred the agency to use its authorities more aggressively, an agency officials said.In 2018, CBP received funding for 140 new positions, some of which went to establish the Forced Labor Division and training. “We have been able to build out a program,” using CBP’s law enforcement capabilities,” said the official. “It is still a work in progress.”When halting imports, there’s a balance between holding companies accountable and potentially causing more harm by damaging local economies.”One of the things we learned early on is, naming and shaming is a tool you want to use very carefully,” said the official, pointing out that there are business reputations at stake and potential economic and diplomatic repercussions.
CBP needs information that reasonably, but not conclusively, indicates that merchandise being imported had used forced labor for it to be banned. Investigations can be triggered in several ways, including through news reports and tips from the public or trade community, according to the agency.
The relocation of hundreds of elephants to Malawi’s largest wildlife reserve was meant to be a sign of hope and renewal for people of Nkhotakota. Then residents began falling ill.
The cause of the headaches, weakness and pain were trypanosomes, tiny parasites spread by the bite of the tsetste fly — a companion of the elephants. Trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is the result.
Local families described the toll the disease can take.
“I feel too weak,” said Chiomba Njati, who was still recovering after a week in the hospital. He said he was bitten while farming near the wildlife reserve. “I cannot even carry a hoe and farm. The home is lacking food and other important things because it is my wife doing everything on her own. This is so worrying.”
Authorities said the Nkhotakota wildlife reserve has seen a surge in tsetse fly numbers since around 2015 when the elephants and other game animals were reintroduced.
tsetse flies
The local hospital said it did not have a number of sleeping sickness cases. One community resident, Group Village Ngondo, recalled at least five deaths from the disease.
The World Health Organization says sleeping sickness is endemic in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa but cases have been dropping. Last year just under 1,000 cases were recorded, a new low. The majority of cases are reported in Congo.
The disease is “notoriously difficult to treat” with drugs and easier to treat when caught early, WHO says. The health agency says it is usually fatal when untreated as the parasite moves into the central nervous system and eventually can cause seizures and coma.
Dr. Janelisa Misaya, a Malawi College of Medicine principal investigator, underscored the need to control the tsetse fly population.
“One tsetse can actually infect a lot of people at once,” she said. “So we don’t want to take chances.”
Some villagers expressed concern about the reintroduction of wildlife and the enlargement of the nearby reserve.
The African Parks field operations manager for the reserve, David Robertson, acknowledged that the reintroduction of animals in 2015 led to an increase in tsetse flies.
“It is a bit ironic because it is a negative symptom of the success we are having,” he said. “By increasing animal numbers, one of the unfortunate consequences could be an increase in tsetse fly numbers. Even though they are a natural part of the system, they contribute to biodiversity.”
The tsetse flies are something the parks workers need to manage differently, Robertson said. “We don’t want to have neighboring communities or tourists to the park having an unpleasant experience or dangerous experience though contact with tsetse flies so we will do our best to manage that in the future.”
To address the problem, African Parks in collaboration with Malawi’s government has introduced pesticide-impregnated targets and traps that attract the flies. So far 600 have been placed in the wildlife reserve.
They are placed near the edge of thickets in areas that will receive morning and evening light but are shaded from the most intense sunlight during midday hours. The area surrounding each is slashed and cleared with hoes to produce a firebreak to protect it from occasional wildfires.
Controlling the flies and animal populations are ways to help fight the disease. More assertive diagnosis and treatment are others.
Local medical personnel are receiving more training to screen for and diagnose trypanosomiasis.
The community has benefited from African Parks’ support for screening efforts, said Tenson Mkumbwa, deputy lab manager at the Nkhotakota District Hospital.
“This leads to early diagnosis and treatment,” he said.
Human rights lawyers are preparing to bring a landmark case against British American Tobacco on behalf of hundreds of children and their families forced by poverty wages to work in conditions of gruelling hard labour in the fields of Malawi.
Leigh Day’s lawyers are seeking compensation for more than 350 child labourers and their parents in the high court in London, arguing that the British company is guilty of “unjust enrichment”. Leigh Day says it anticipates the number of child labourer claimants to rise as high as 15,000. While BAT claims it has told farmers not to use their children as unpaid labour, the lawyers say the families cannot afford to work their fields otherwise, because they receive so little money for their crop.
The case, potentially one of the biggest that human rights lawyers have ever brought, could transform the lives of children in poor countries who are forced to work to survive not only in tobacco but also in other industries such as the garment trade.
It follows exposure of the scale and brutal reality of child labour in the tobacco fields by the Guardian last year, which Martyn Day, a founding partner and head of the firm, said had provoked them to act. “If it hadn’t been for the Guardian, this case would not be happening,” he said.
Day added: “It is totally depressing that one of the largest companies in the world, and certainly one of the largest British companies, is involved in an area where the employment of children is such a fundamental part of what happens. It has been going on for decades, and as a result of all of that the farmers of Malawi are caught in a groundhog day, where one generation after another is having to farm tobacco and is caught in a poverty trap.”
Many of the families are from Phalombe, one of the poorest regions in the south of the country. They are recruited to tobacco farms in the north with the promise of food, accommodation and a lump sum in cash for their crop. Their accommodation is a straw hut they must build themselves; the food is a monthly sack of maize, which is insufficient to feed the family and which is stopped before their tenancy ends. The lump sum they are paid at the end of the season dwindles often to less than half what is offered after deductions for tools and loans that the families have to take out to pay for essentials.
According to the letter of claim, seen by the Guardian, last season most claimants earned no more than £100 to £200 for 10 months’ work for a family of five. Their lawyers say the work amounts to forced or bonded labour because they are misled when recruited, are afraid to leave and quickly get into debt.Advertisement
Children as young as three are involved in tobacco farming, the letter of claim says, often during harvest when the work can be especially hazardous. Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of toxic pesticides, fertiliser and green tobacco sickness, from nicotine absorption while handling the leaves. Symptoms include breathing difficulties, cramps and vomiting.
Some children go to school, as the law requires, but often only sporadically. Almost all work from sunrise in the fields before school and then when they get home, as well as through the weekend. At harvest time, classrooms empty.
BAT is one of the most profitable companies in the world, making an operating profit last year of £9.3bn on sales of £24.5bn. Like other big tobacco companies, it has distanced itself from the farmers by commissioning a separate company to buy a stipulated amount of tobacco leaf each year. Alliance One signs contracts with land-owning farmers in Malawi, who then recruit tenant farmer families to work the fields.
The lawyers, who have sent BAT the letter of claim and say they expect to issue proceedings this year, argue that responsibility for the conditions of the tenant families rests ultimately with BAT, which decides the price it will pay for tobacco leaf. In April, Leigh Day won a watershed case against Vedanta, a British mining company, which the high court held responsible for the actions of its subsidiary in polluting farmland in Zambia. That case opened the way to hold other British companies responsible for harm caused by the actions of those who work for them overseas.
A report in 2011 estimated there were 1.3 million children under the age of 14 working in tobacco around the world. In 2017, an International Labour Organisation report said child labour in tobacco was on the increase and “rampant”.
Day said: “If we are successful in Malawi, I would very much hope it would persuade BAT and the other tobacco companies that use very similar models to change those models and make sure people are properly compensated for the work and totally discourage children from working so they can go to school.”
BAT said in a statement that it took the issue of child labour very seriously and “strongly agrees that children must never be exploited, exposed to danger or denied an education”.
Simon Cleverly, the group head of corporate affairs, said BAT’s core policies “specifically state that we do not condone forced, bonded or involuntary labour; and that we do not condone or employ child labour, and seek to ensure that the welfare, health and safety of children are paramount at all times”.
He said BAT made it clear to contract farmers and suppliers that exploitative child labour and forced and bonded labour would not be tolerated.
BAT leaf operations and contracted suppliers were required to participate in the industry-wide sustainable tobacco programme, he said, which was aligned with United Nations standards, including on child labour and income for farm workers.
“As we have received a letter of claim relating to these allegations, it would be inappropriate for us to provide further comment at this time,” Cleverly said.
Malawi’s Vice President Everton Chimulirenji on Thursday assured victims of the inferno that gutted down part of Blantyre market of full Government support, after touring the charred section of the market and interacting with the vendors.
The Veep said President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika was “deeply saddened with the loss of merchandise and knows its effects on their households.”
“I have been delegated to convey a message from President Mutharika. As President for all Malawians he says he will not leave you alone, as you grieve for the lost merchandise he grieves with you,” he said.
Chimulirenji speaking to BT market fire victims
The VP added: “This is the more reason we have come with officials from Malawi Enterprise Development Fund (Medef) to assess the impact of the financial loss and to appraise those who can get soft loans from the organisation to restart their businesses.”
The fire coincides with a statement released by government earlier this month alleging that HRDC and opposition members were planning to torch markets in the country.
The Vice President said it is the wish of the Mutharika administration that Malawians should be economically self reliant hence Government’s prompt intervention to the fire accident.
He said: “The current administration under the leadership of President Mutharika seeks to ensure that the citizenry is self reliant economically. For this reason we will come again to monitor the impact of the support you will receive.”
Chimulirenji disclosed that Government will provide 200 bags of rice to the 120 victims of the fire accident.
Blantyre City Council is yet to establish the total loss of merchandise and part of the market infrastructure.
Representatives of the vendors Konley Kamnonyere said vending brings food on their table and the damage caused by fire has left them devasatated.
