Does the world know where their tea or flowers comes from? Do we care how our tea got to us from the tea plant to our tea pot? What if I told you that a woman at a tea farm in Africa was sexually exploited for her to pick your tea?
Kenya’s Tea is undoubtedly one of the best in the world. This is a cash crop that helps provide huge revenues for the country, and provides employment to thousands of workers. British-owned tea farms are some of the largest in the country and Scottish firm James Finlay is one of the farms employing hundreds of workers. Their recruitment and employment process has been under scrutiny following an expose by the BBC this week. This investigation uncovered some of the allegations of sexual exploitation by some of their managers, as part of the hiring process for women. Undercover investigation showed a hiring manager asking a female job applicant to meet him at a hotel, and he demanded for sex if she really needed the job. His demeanor showed that this was not his first incident, as seventy other women came forth to report of sexual abuse by the same man and others that have suffered silently under such rogue managers.
Many of these workers are so desperate for work that they do not have any other options, and the other alternatives are worse off. Their supervisors prey on their vulnerability, and in knowing that the employment laws in Africa are weak and patriarchal.
Similar incidents were exposed at British Dutch Company Unilever, where two managers sexually harassed an undercover investigator at the Unilever tea farm. Unilever’s business is now owned by Lipton Teas and Infusions, and other companies such as Starbucks, Tesco, Sainsbury and other major outlets purchase tea from these multinational tea estates.
This expose has brought to the limelight unethical practices taking place in these farms. Clear violations of the human rights of female workers. These large plantations in Africa have been marred by controversies. The flower farms in Naivasha Kenya have been known to have their workers work for long hours on their feet, use harmful chemicals that have caused serious injuries to the plantation workers, sex slavery has been rampantly reported by female workers among other abuses and violations.
Africa has vast plantations that grow cash crops such as coffee, sugar, pyrethrum, cotton and other crops for export. Most consumers abroad always look for the ‘Fair Trade’ symbol to judge a product, it is the high time we added such a symbol to show that a company upheld the human rights of its workers.
I commend the BBC for doing such a wonderful job in exposing the exploitation of workers that takes place in these plantations. This may bring the change that is much needed to dignify workers and uphold the human rights of the poor vulnerable workers.