From: harelb@MATH.CORNELL.EDU (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Newsgroups: alt.activism,soc.women
Subject: SRI LANKA: WORKERS HAVE NO RIGHTS ON THE TEA ESTATES
Date: 27 Aug 92 18:25:21 GMT
Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB

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Topic 201       IPS:Sri Lanka: Workers Have No 
hrcoord apc.labour      10:05 am  Aug 27, 1992 
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From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord> 
Subject: IPS:Sri Lanka: Workers Have No 

/* Written 12:06 am  Aug 27, 1992 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.englibrary */ 
Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved.  Permission to re- 
print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'. 

Title: SRI LANKA: WORKERS HAVE NO RIGHTS ON THE TEA ESTATES 


an inter press service feature 

by nadia bilbassy 

nuwara eliya, sri lanka, aug 24 (ips) -- sandampapu is a fragile 
looking woman of 52. backbreaking work on a tea plantation in sri 
lanka coupled with the burden of running a home has aged her 
beyond her years. 

day in and day out for the last 40 years she has been like a 
machine -- waking up at 4.30 a.m. to make breakfast for the 
family before leaving for work. she returns at 5 and then is off 
to fetch water and firewood after which she makes dinner. 
sandampapu never gets to bed before 11. 

a second generation indian tamil, her family were labourers 
recruited from india in the 1830's to work the tea plantations in 
thettattgzlohigmbands like slaves. 

ions s released sandampapu and thousands like her from 
bondage, but little else has changed. in a country where 95 
percent of people are literate, 70 percent of plantation workers 
have never had a chance to learn to read and write. 

the tea industry is sri lanka's second highest foreign 
exchange earner. but the money has not trickled down to the 
500,000 tea workers, most of them women, living with their 
families in squalid 'lines' -- rows of one-roomed homes -- on the 
estates. 

sri lanka's tea, coconut and rubber plantations under state 
control for two decades, were handed over to private managers 
this year. officials hope this will revive the ailing industry. 

but colombo has paid little attention to the workers' long 
standing demands that they should be settled outside the estates. 
this is seen as crucial to improve their lot economically and 
socially. 

a tea worker is paid 60 rupees, less than one and a half 
dollars, daily for plucking 18 kgs of leaves. pictures of 
laughing tea workers plucking the fabled ceylon tea on packets in 
western super markets hides the grim reality of their lives. 

sandampapu says if she wants to make a little more money she 
has to work at least 10 hours every day. for every extra 
kilogramme she plucks, she is paid three rupees.)7 
5  in sri lanka's tea plantationxppen  fltften the principal 
bread winners. but in this patriarchal society, they have no 
control of their wages. violence and sexual abuse are common 
place. and fights between husbands and wives usual on pay day. 
(more/ips) 


(story received incomplete) 
n151