What brand of tires do you drive on? If they're Firestone brand, you'll be happy to know that you're helping to prop up a rubber plantation owned by Firestone in Liberia.

Three or four times a morning, depending on how strong they feel, Mulbah and his mates go back and forth between the plantation and the weighing machine. They belong to the Firestone plantation's (officially) 6,000-strong workforce. Mulbah's worn-out sandals say it all. Struggling to earn $3 a day, he can't afford a $10 pair of Firestone rubber boots.

Liberia was in a civil war for 14 years. This caused many people to be displaced, seeking refuge in the plantation, the one place that somehow managed to avoid damage. Firestone, seeing an opportunity, has taken full advantage of desperate times and a bad situation.

"In a country where there is no work, we have little alternative," says Mulbah. "I spent 12 years at school and studied mechanics. I know the words for all sorts of things. This is slavery, just like in the history books."

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The staple food is rice, supplied by Firestone and deducted from the workers' pay: $25 for two 50kg bags.

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According to a report published in November on the internet by the local NGO Save My Future Foundation (Samfu), 10,000 people, including children, work indirectly for Firestone.

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Effluents from the processing plant flow directly into the adjoining Farmington river..."We try to explain to the women not to wash clothes in the river." Dr Lyndon Mabande, the senior consultant at the Firestone hospital inadvertently confirms this situation. "Apart from falls and ammonia burns, we see a lot of patients suffering from gastric complaints," he says. "When they work in the bush, they drink contaminated water."

With the UN embargo on diamonds and timber (but oddly, not rubber....hmmm) and all rubber exported out of Liberia for processing, it doesn't seem likely that Liberians lives will improve. As Firestone is making the profit, not Liberia, it's doubly unlikely.

Old world style plantation, child labor, hazardous working and living conditions. When confronted with these accusations, Firestones public relations manager Edwin Padmore brushes these claims aside.

Padmore dismisses such claims, explaining that average pay amounts to $3.38 for an eight-hour day, well above the national average in a country with 80% unemployment.

Nice guy.