While International Women’s Day is being celebrated across the world commemorating the contribution of working women in our society, female workers in Moulvibazar tea gardens are yet to achieve equality and equity at their workplaces.
The female tea workers have always been underpaid and the issues centring their health and hygiene, including problems regarding maternity and childcare, long working hours under extreme weather conditions, and lack of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in the gardens have become usual with no preventive measures from the authorities concerned for long.
Tea workers said about 51 per cent of around 1,39,000 workers in the 158 traditionally large tea gardens—located in Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, and Chattogram—are women, yet the issues with their rights and livelihood remain elusive to date.
In Moulvibazar alone, more than 50,000 women are working in the 97 tea gardens. According to the Bangladesh Tea Workers Association, the maximum daily wage of a tea worker is Tk 120 but the tea gardens pay as little as Tk 85 to their female subordinates. The tea workers said that there are three categories of tea gardens in the district and they are supposed to pay the same to the permanent and temporary workers, but it is not maintained in the respective tea gardens in the district.
During a recent visit to the tea gardens, a picturesque scene of countless women picking tea leaves in the green valleys was seen from a distance. However, the extent of their laborious work and below standard life standard cannot be fathomed. While most men disappear by midday after fulfilling their nirikh (daily quota of work), women keep working in the gardens until sunset.
Anjana Kairi, a tea worker of Alinagar Tea Garden, said the job of tea leaf picking requires the workers to keep standing all day—be it under the scorching sun or in the rain. They normally walk four to five kilometres to reach the section where they pick tea leaves, she said.
Trishna Gowala, another tea worker of Brahmachhara Tea Garden in Sreemangal’s Sindurkhan said between morning and lunchtime, a tea leaf picker (pattiwali) is likely to complete two rounds of submission of tea leaves at collection points. Each time, they walk two to three kilometres to reach the collection point and then go back to their designated sections. The collections during morning hours sometimes go well over the nirikh of the day.
The lunch break provides for quite a scene, said Protima Nayek, a tea worker of the garden. She said, usually, they sit in groups under the open sky or a tree. There is no shade for them to sit under and eat lunch or take a rest if someone falls sick—which is a violation of the labour law.
The indecencies do not stop there. There is no toilet or washing facilities in the sections where the tea garden workers work forcing women to defecate and urinate in the open. This is again a clear violation of the labour law, said tea worker Archana Gowala adding that by the time they drop off their final headloads of green tea leaves at the collection points, the sun sets on the horizon.
Anjana, Archana, Protima, and other tea workers said that each woman picks an additional 20-25kg or even more of tea leaves to make some extra money after meeting their daily target of 22-25kg. The wage they get for picking up the additional tea leaves is not fair or enough to run their families.
Women tea labourers face the toughest time during their pregnancies, said Suma Nayek a worker of Rajaghat Tea Garden, adding that expecting mothers keep working till the very end of their pregnancies. Hard work and fall during work often cause miscarriages, said Pangkaj Kanda, vice president of the central committee of Bangladesh Tea Workers Union.
Whereas women in other rural areas get easy-term loans from different NGOs and government, we do not get any as women tea workers do not own any residential land here even after residing here for four generations now. Tea workers Dipa Tati, Nilu Tati and Suma Nayek said they somehow merely survive on the minimum weekly wages that they get as it is their only source of income.
“We regularly communicate with the higher authorities addressing these issues but the situation remains unchanged,” said Bijoy Hazra, a workers’ leader and president of Sreemangal Balisheera Valley.
The tea workers have never received gratuity at retirement or their share in the companies’ profits. Furthermore, he said they face deprivation of many other kinds as citizens of Bangladesh because of their isolation from the mainstream population.
Bangladesh Tea Association President GM Shibli told The Business Post, “We provide daily essentials at subsidised prices to the tea workers. They get a kilogram of rice, flour, lentil and other grains on only Tk 2. And the weekly salary that the tea workers get is higher than many industries.”
Several other tea garden owners also echoed Shibli.
“We are prohibited from building any latrines on the tea garden premises. But a plan to install mobile latrines on the tea gardens is underway,” said Shibli.
