Allegations of children rights and human rights violations by British American Tobacco

Allegations of children rights and human rights violations by British American Tobacco British American Tobacco has set their goals to be the leading company in the industry, knowing that, they have to be able to select and apply the best business strategies. But being one of the leading tobacco firms in the UK, British American Tobacco is known to purchase tobacco from Indonesia, where they can not guarantee that the tobacco is not made from child labor. Although that every tobacco firms in the world have the responsibility to monitor and investigate on how their tobacco is harvested in their farms, they still can not control on the actual process applied in the farming. According to independent.co.uk, Human Rights Watch have conducted research in 2014 and 2015 ini tobacco farming in Indonesia where they interviewed more than 100 children under 18 who work there. These children are risking their health and wellness working harvesting tobacco by hand, said the Human Rights Watch. Many of these children have in fact suffered from nausea and vomitting due to being around tobacco so much. Children are known to work through long hours in these farms, without even wearing any protective garments while handling these tobacco. These surely sound terrible, especially when it is the company’s responsibilities to make sure that no child under the age of 18 work in direct with tobacco. British American Tobacco is one of the multinational companies that have committed to the International Labour Organisations (ILO) right conventions. These companies in the conventions have agreed that the minimum age for children to work is 15 years old, whereas the minimum age for the hazardous work is 18 years old. Yet they still can not guarantee, because they claim to cannot be â€Å"everywhere at once†. British American Tobacco mentioned that their subsidiary, Bentoel, takes the child labour issue very seriously. â€Å"We do not employ children in any of our operations worldwide and make it clear to all of our contracted farmers and suppliers that exploitative child labour will not be tolerated. In Indonesia, however, children often participate in agriculture to help their families, and to learn farming methods and skills from their elders† BAT said. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) also knows that working while the children are in school can be a norma l part of growing up in poor communities, because of the rural environment they are in. British American Tobacco is said to be working with the Eliminating Child Labour in Tobacco growing foundation (ECLT) to tackle extreme child labour in these areas in Indonesia. Not only in Indonesia, British American Tobacco has also vowed back in 2016 to investigate some of its farms located in Bangladesh after Swedwatch, a Swedish campaign group uncovered the truth that the farms use could workers to grow and process tobacco, carrying loads, cutting the stems, and cure the tobacco. These children are reportedly being pulled out of school to work in the farm for as long as 16 hours a day. These working activities surely grows out the risk of health for these children, because they are very much exposed to tobacco plants, the dust, and the smoke. Group Head of Corporate Affairs at British American Tobacco, Simon Cleverly has told that the company has in fact investigated the report’s findings but found no evidence of children rights and human rights violations. He also claime d the British American Tobacco were consistent with the findings of these studies held by themselves to look into tobacco growing and farming process and found that the company has a positive impact on the socio-economic area in Bangladesh. Up until now, British American Tobacco is still very much sure that they have not done anything wrong in the process of harvesting their tobacco in these countries, and that they believe that they have mutual benefits with the countries they have been working with for years.

History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 26

History - Essay Example After this war Britain came up victorious and this also eradicated fear of French attack on the colonies. Colonies did not have to worry about their own defense (from French) and therefore their reliance on British decreased significantly. British also were heavily indebted due to the expenses on the war so they increased taxes of the colonies. It was a tradition at that time to impose taxes on colonies in order to earn more revenue. This was also a reason for the disgruntlement of the people of colonies. They felt that they were under slavery and this played a major role in the revolution. British Empire had colonies all over the world and they wanted to extend their power. For this reason they forced all their colonies to trade with themselves only. Through Navigation Act British Empire forced the American colonies to trade with British only and restricted trade with France and Spain. This was economically crushing American colonies and they had their reservation on the act. Sugar Act was another piece of legislation that increased the problems of the American Colonies. The act increased duties on imported sugar and this forced American colonies to stop using British goods. The timing of this act was a problem. It came at a time when people were already suffering from depression and this Act angered people more. They thought that they were being exploited. Currency Act was also a controversial act that restricted the colonies from printing money. British Empire thought that the devalued currency of colonies was hurting their economy therefore they forbade colonist from paying British traders in the colonist currency. This really made life difficult for the American colonies. People had to pay higher and this deprived them from their hard earned money. Currency Act can be regarded as a derogatory piece of legislation that was aimed at hurting the colonies of America. This was a major cause of the American Revolution. The tipping point

Unconventional Monetary Policies of the Economic and Monetary Union Essay

Unconventional Monetary Policies of the Economic and Monetary Union - Essay Example The main body presiding over the decisions of the Union is the Eurosystem which consists of the governors of the European Central Bank (ECB) and National Central Banks (NCBs) of the seventeen member countries (European Central Bank, 2004). While the ECB has only a major share in deciding the policies of the EMU, it bears the whole of the responsibility of implementation of the EMU’s policies. The Governing Council of the EMU comprises the people voting over the prospective policies of the EMU. Each person has one vote of the common weight. Members of the council include the President, Vice-President and the four directors of the ECB, and the governors of the NCBs of each of the seventeen member countries thereby rendering the total number of Governing Council members twenty-three. Primary Objective The main objective of the EMU as described in article 105 of the Maastricht Treaty (Jenkins & Economist Intelligence Unit, 1992, p. 466) is the maintenance of price stability. The a rticle goes on to state that â€Å"Without prejudice to the objective of price stability, the ECB shall support the general economic policies in the Community with a view to contributing to the achievement of the Community†. The reasoning for the selection of this objective can be traced to the incentive for the formation of the ECB, which was the fear of rising in inflation due to the dominance of the Germans over the European economic landscape. Hence the EMU has a stated primary objective of keeping the average growth, over the Union countries, of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices below two percent (Buti & Sapir, 2002). Monetary Policy In order to pursue this objective the EMU has to choose between the two main macroeconomic approaches. It can either concentrate on an Inflation Targeting approach where a clearly defined objective of numerical indicators of levels of inflation is to be pursued or it can adopt a monetary targeting framework where it expands its resourc es on influencing the monetary aggregate. So far the strategies adopted by the EMU have been described by economists as inclusive of certain aspects of both types of approach; a two-pillar approach. The first pillar in this approach is the money stock manipulation while the second pillar comprises the inflation control strategies. It has been evident for at least a decade that the monetary aggregate indicators do not correspond to the inflation rates which the monetary control purportedly affects (Bofinger, Reischle, & Scha?chter, 2001). The basis for this approach is the economic relation of the money stock to price stability represented by the Quantity Theory Equation (Mayer, 1990, p. 132): ?m = ?p + ?y – ?v Where ?: Change from one year to the next m: Money stock p : Price level y : Real GDP v : Velocity of stock However the equation and the corresponding monetary theory assume that the monetary base represents the M3 aggregate. This assumption has turned out to be incorre ct from the experience of the Euro area economies in the past decade.