Perfume’s Dark Secret: Scots university lifts lid on child labour

A new BBC documentary shows children as young as five working through the night to pick the jasmine flowers that are found in some of the most popular fragrances that sell for up to £200 a bottle.

Entire families who do this work can be the equivalent of one dollar a day for a 12-hour shift. 

A team of investigative journalists visited four locations in Egypt’s main jasmine-growing area in the Gharbia region in the summer of 2023.

Jasmine must be picked at night because this is when the petals open (Image: Sonia Jane Smith)

The film is focussed on one family and shows the mother taking her daughter to the doctor because she has developed a severe allergy from the work which is threatening her sight.

The United Nation’s special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery said what the film uncovered “may constitute the worst form of child labour”.

Determining who should be held accountable, however, is not straightforward because of the complex chain of processes and different entities involved in every bottle of perfume.

Top brands including L'Oréal, which owns the fragrance house Lancôme, and Estee Lauder are mentioned in the documentary.

"Some of these global brands have no idea as to how these material are sourced," says Dr Umair  Choksy, a senior lecturer at Stirling University, which is hosting a special event to promote the film.

He specialises in global value chains (GVCs), the complex network of activities that are spread across the world to create a product.

'It's not just lack of awareness - it's lack of effort by the brands' (Image: University of Stirling) "The structure we see is that the brands are mostly concerned with the price they get the perfume for from the fragrance house," he says.

"The fragrance houses buy from the factories in Egypt who source from the farms. It's something [ working conditions] that only these factories are aware of.

"It's not just lack of awareness, it's lack of effort really. There are global brands out there who go into their supply chain and ensure that sustainable and ethical practices or at least make an effort to go to some of the farms."

Auditing companies are hired to assess labour conditions but their independence is under question.

L'Oréal responded in the documentary saying that despite "strong commitments and actions" it is aware that in certain parts of the world where its supplier operate "there are risks to our commitments being upheld" but said it is actively taking steps to ensure standards are upheld.

Estée Lauder said it had contacted its suppliers "to investigate this very serious matter."

Dr Choksy mentions other industries and brands that have already been exposed for child labour. Nike halted production of hand-stitched footballs in Pakistan in 2006 amid concerns about working conditions and the smartphone and fast-fashion industries have also been implicated.

"Perfume is not one we have known about until recently," he says.

"Something needs to be done in this particular areas because global brands are capturing more and more profits out of engagements with developing countries."

"Lots of corporations and businesses have some form of modern slavery statement perhaps around supply chains and that sort of ticks a box," says Dr Ashley Rogers a lecturer in criminology at the university, who specialises in "crimes of the powerful".

'The concern is that anti-slavery statements are tokenistic' (Image: University of Stirling)

"But the concern is that this has become part of a marketing strategy and/or is a bit tokenistic if there is no commitment there to ensure they are establishing the real conditions of what is taking place throughout the supply chain."

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She said her only concern when films like this are made is that some blame is apportioned towards the parents.

"It's easier to do that because there is a clear face when in actual fact those who are producing the conditions of harm and who are harming are invisible through the complexity of the supply chain," she says.

She says consumers themselves should also consider carefully whether they want to boycott the brands mentioned in the documentary.

"It's not the responsibility of the consumer," she says.

"We all have an element of social responsibility, absolutely but particularly in relation to modern slavery you will never really know and that probably sounds like quite a hopeless thing to say.

"We have a tendency often and it's very easy to do, to individualise the responsibility because it feels, again like something that is more accessible or tangible to condemn the purchase of these products when in actual fact that's not really the problem.

"The problem is the payment or the unfair payment of wages given the profits that are being made by corporations.

"I would say it wouldn't necessarily help to stop consuming products with jasmine in them because you might intentionally be cutting off all the way back to that family who works to get that money.

"Those are the conditions of poverty that people are living in and if we are not offering solutions, we also become part of the problem."

Perfume's Dark Secret will be screened on November 6 at the Macrobert Arts Centre Filmhouse and will be followed by a Q&A. To book a free ticket click here.