Health and Socio Economic Status of Tobacco Workers in Malawi

Abstract

Tobacco is the major money crop of Malawi and it contributed the maximum of the national income. Malawi is the major contributor in the tobacco production of the world and many of the cigarette companies are using the burley leaf tobacco produced in the Malawian farm due to its rich taste and quality. Tobacco is a major smoking device used by millions of people all over the Malawi who can’t afford the pleasure of smoking a cigarette because of the price that is prohibitive taking in to consideration the economic status of the majority of smokers all over the nation. Smoking tobacco suited the financial strength of the emerging industries workers and agricultural labourers. In this study made an attempt to study the health and socioeconomic aspects of the tobacco workers, to find out the nature of work conditions of the tobacco workers, to study the awareness of tobacco workers with regard to family problems and to find out their participation in religious gathering. This study found that tobacco workers were lives in most of the rural areas of Malawi through secondary data pertained from the Government and Non Government sources. Population method was adopted to collect the information from the tobacco workers in the study area. This study found that Tobacco is not only injurious to health of the smokers and also to the makers of the Tobacco (Tobacco workers) too. Socio-economic status of the tobacco worker also very poor when compare with the minimum wages in the study area. These tobacco workers are forced to engage this sector due to non availability of other kind of jobs and lack of skills to engage in the other jobs. This study concludes that Government and Non Governmental organizations should take necessary actions to improve the health and socio economic status through providing vocational training and guidance to enhance their skills and help them in self employment opportunities. Further, it opens up new avenues for the future researchers to contribute more on this to enhance the health condition from all the parts of the world.