Child Labor in Perfume Production

Author: Jasmyn J. Tang, MPH

February 13, 2025

[Image source: Yahoo]

Perfume is both luxurious, yet common. A booming industry with increasing projected revenue each year, the fragrance market revenue for 2024 was approximately $60 billion USD with a projected 3.1% increase to $62 billion USD in 2025.[1] North America already dominates the perfume industry with a market share of 35%.[2] In the United States alone, the perfume market value is predicted to be $23 billion USD by 2032.[2]

According to the Washington Post,[3] perfume is one of the fastest growing industries, with more than 100 million units sold in the United States in 2023. Even though the average price per unit of women’s fragrance products was almost $10 USD, the post-COVID-19 pandemic saw a surge in what was named “super luxury,” with $300 - $400 fragrances selling very well.[3][4] Today’s consumers look for personability and variation, using perfume as a layer of self-expression.[3] But, how does child labor contribute to the dark side of this industry?

In 2024, the United Nations[5] (UN) and the United Nations Children’s Fund[6] (UNICEF) updated international data and status on global child labor. Although the fight for child labor has steadily improved, decreasing from 16% to 9.6% since 2000, 160 million or 1 in 10 children are still involved in various forms of labor. More than 1 in 5 children are affected in the world's poorest countries, with Africa ranking the highest. Globally, only 1.1% of GDP is spent on social protection for children. Additionally, 28% of 5–17-year-old children in Africa are estimated to participate in child labor.

[Image source: BBC]

One story changed the global perspective on the relationship between perfume and child labor. On May 28, 2024, BBC broadcasted a documentary featuring the story of the Egyptian jasmine flower, perfume, and a family unable to survive without their children’s help.

BBC Documentary

Child labour behind global brands’ best-selling perfumes – BBC World Service Documentaries

[Image source: Vogue]

According to the documentary, children have been used to supply Lancôme (L’Oréal owner) and Aerin Beauty's (Estée Lauder owner) jasmine in a village responsible for cultivating 75% of the country’s jasmine.[7][8] Egyptian jasmine produces about half the world’s supply of the flower and is a key ingredient in Lancôme Idôle L'Intense - and Ikat Jasmine and Limone Di Sicilia for Aerin Beauty.[7]

Heba, the family BBC documented, wakes her family at 3:00 am to begin picking flowers and needs her four children, the youngest just 5 years old, to pick enough jasmine to support the entire family.[7] However, even when the family managed to pick 1.5 kg of the flower, she was only left with $1.5 for that night’s work.[7] Jasmine should have been worth around $4 per kilogram.[8] Witnessing the disturbing footage, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, emphasized that the industry promises so many good things like transparency and fighting child labor; but, the reality is that they are not doing what they promised.[7][9] The family pickers themselves are not at fault. Poorer families are more likely to engage in child labor and at times are forced to bring their families to work for absurdly low profit, like Heba.[9][10]

In 1996, Egypt passed its Child Law, prohibiting children under 14 from working, making exceptions for 12-14-year-olds during seasonal agricultural work.[8] Prior research has found that even though Egypt agreed and ratified international regulations on child labor, the country has made minimal advancement in its efforts, with work-related injuries estimated at 24%.[8][10][11] Exhausted from already long hours of work, almost 60% of children could not stop working or schooling due to injury leading to chronic health risks, cancer, asthma, neurodevelopment, and organ damage.[8][11]

In a study conducted on 478 working children from various areas in Egypt, multiple contributing factors have a substantial impact on Egypt’s child labor market.[12] Due to the impact of low income, this was considered the highest weight towards child labor at 89%, family disintegration at 88%, high school dropout rates at 87%, social traditions and customs at 77%, and migration from rural to urban areas at 76%.[12]

With detrimental health costs, below-poverty income, minimal governmental advancements, and failing audits in a multi-billion-dollar industry, what needs to change to prevent such travesties? It’s not one or two laws or changes, but rather the whole system, as well as the perfume industry taking responsibility for where and how their ingredients are procured. Companies need to stop relying on public relations (PR) to say that they don’t support any form of child labor because these words aren’t going to stop it. Active changes need to take place within the whole system: local, governmental, and national. Without advancements, children will continue to be forced to work.

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Glossary

1. Absurdly: ridiculously unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous

2. Agricultural: the science, art, or practice of cultivating the soil, producing crops, and raising livestock and in varying degrees the preparation and marketing of the resulting products

3. Asthma: a chronic lung disorder that is marked by recurring episodes of airway obstruction

4. Audits: a formal examination of an organization's or individual's accounts or financial situation

5. Chronic: continuing or occurring again and again for a long time

6. Consumers: one that utilizes economic goods

7. Contemporary: marked by characteristics of the present period: modern, current

8. Detrimental: obviously harmful, damaging

9. Disintegration: the breaking down of something into small particles or into its constituent elements

10. Gross Domestic Product (GDP): total market value of the goods and services produced by a country’s economy during a specified period of time 

11. Luxurious: ​​a condition of abundance or great ease and comfort

12. Neurodevelopment: the development of the nervous system, the formation of neuronal pathways and synaptic connections that are responsible for brain development and function

13. Procured: to get possession of (something), to obtain (something) by particular care and effort

14. Ratified: to approve and sanction formally, confirm

15. Revenue: the total income produced by a given source

16. Transparency: free from pretense or deceit

17. Travesties: a debased, distorted, or grossly inferior imitation

18. 
    

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Sources

1. Fragrances - Worldwide. Statista. (2024, November). https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/beauty-personal-care/fragrances/worldwide

2. Perfume Market Size, Share, & Industry Analysis, 2024-2032. Fortune Business Insights. (2024, December 16). https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/perfume-market-102273

3. The fragrance industry is booming. Here’s why it makes scents. The Washington Post. (2024, July 7). https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/07/07/fragrance-sales-prestige-viral/

4. Petruzzi, D. (2024, December 10). Average price per unit of women’s fragrance products in the United States in 2023, by product category. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1301647/us-women-s-fragrance-products-price-by-type/

5. United Nations. (2024). World Day Against Child Labour. United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-day-against-child-labour

6. Child labour. UNICEF. (2024, July). https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-protection/child-labour/

7. ElShamy, A. E. and N., & Cox, N. (2024, May 27). Luxury perfumes linked to child labour, BBC finds. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68172560

8. Doyle, M. (2024, May 30). Jasmine farms supplying Estée Lauder and L’Oréal linked to child labour. Vogue Business. https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/sustainability/jasmine-farms-supplying-estee-lauder-and-loreal-linked-to-child-labour

9. United, F. (2024). The stink of exploitative child labor in L’Oréal and Estée Lauder Perfumes. Human Trafficking Search. https://humantraffickingsearch.org/resource/the-stink-of-exploitative-child-labor-in-loreal-and-estee-lauder-perfumes/

10. Child Labor and Forced Labor Reports - Egypt. Bureau of International Labor Affairs. (2023). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/egypt

11. Fouad, A. M., Amer, S. A. A. M., Abdellatif, Y. O., & Elotla, S. F. (2022). Work-related injuries among 5 - 17 years-old working children in Egypt: findings from a national child labor survey. BMC public health, 22(1), 1303. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13689-6

12. Elsayed, W. (2024). Breaking the cycle of child labor in Egypt: Exploring social and economic factors associated with child labor in Egypt for a sustainable future. ScienceDirect, 8. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666188824000856