Workers on tea plantations in the Assam region of India are systematically denied their rights to a living wage and decent working and living conditions. The fact that they are unable to meet their basic living costs is starkly illustrated by our finding that 50% of the households that researchers visited on behalf of Oxfam owned ‘below poverty line’ ration cards issued by the Government of Assam, making them eligible for rations of 5kg of rice per month per family member. Tea workers also struggle to get timely and good quality healthcare, access clean drinking water, and provide their children with a decent education.

The root causes are deeply embedded in the history and evolution of the Indian tea industry, which has led to a pervasive inequality of power between the women and men that produce tea and the brands and supermarkets that sell it to consumers.

For every kilogram of packaged Assam tea that is sold, tea brands and supermarkets take a sizable cut – up to 95% in some cases – while a marginal proportion – less than 5% – remains on tea estates to pay workers. These inequalities in how the share of the end consumer price of tea is distributed contribute to poverty and suffering for the women and men on Assam tea estates, while driving a sustainability crisis for the wider tea industry in parts of India.

Women bear the heaviest burden of systemic inequality, as they are concentrated in the lowest paid plucking roles and also shoulder most of the unpaid domestic care work. Meanwhile, plantation owners claim that laws making them responsible for housing, healthcare and education of workers and their dependents are challenging to implement – and therefore are not effectively executed.

Oxfam’s new research shows that the solutions lie in a fairer sharing of the end consumer price of tea, stronger gender policies, and a review of plantation labour laws to ensure that women and men in Assam can lead dignified lives.

Addressing the Human Cost of Assam Tea: An agenda for change to respect, protect and fulfil human rights on Assam tea plantations - Oxfam, 2019 DOWNLOAD

post

page

attachment

revision

nav_menu_item

custom_css

customize_changeset

oembed_cache

user_request

wp_block

wp_template

wp_template_part

wp_global_styles

wp_navigation

wp_font_family

wp_font_face

acf-taxonomy

acf-post-type

acf-field-group

acf-field

ai1ec_event

exactmetrics_note

ICAT calls for stronger action and cooperation to counter human trafficking in humanitarian crises and conflicts
Publications

The world is currently experiencing multiple crises with serious humanitarian consequences. Armed conflicts, terrorism, climate change-induced disasters, the lingering COVID-19 pandemic and other health emergencies, as well as rising economic and fo...Read More

TAGS:
Business and human rights: A five-step guide for company boards
Guidance

The guide is for boards of companies in the United Kingdom. It sets out five steps boards should follow to satisfy themselves that their companies identify, mitigate and report on the human rights impacts of their activities. These steps will also he...Read More

Production and Active Trading of Child Sexual Exploitation Images Depicting Identified Victims
Guidance

Research team: Michael C. Seto, Royal Ottawa Health Care Group; Cierra Buckman, Johns Hopkins University; R. Gregg Dwyer, Medical University of South Carolina; Ethel Quayle, University of Edinburgh. The primary objective in this project was to de...Read More

TAGS: Global
The Use of Bayesian Networks for Realist Evaluation of Complex Interventions: Evidence for Prevention of Human Trafficking
News & AnalysisGuidance

Complex systems and realist evaluation offer promising approaches for evaluating social interventions. These approaches take into account the complex interplay among factors to produce outcomes, instead of attempting to isolate single causes of obse...Read More