IRIN news service
Tea in Sri Lanka is one of the country’s biggest cash crops, but families working on tea estates are among the nation’s poorest in terms of earnings as well as nutrition, say experts who back regional approaches to tackle nutrition disparity.
One in every five children younger than five is malnourished nationwide and one in six newborns has a low birth weight, one cause of infant deaths, according to a recent study from the Colombo-based Institute of Policy Studies (IPS).
But the situation is worse for children of tea estate workers, with one in three classified as underweight and 40 percent of babies born with too-low weight, IPS noted.
Ramasamy Ramakrishnan, 46, a tea estate worker and father of five, and his wife, who is also a tea harvester, earn US$130 monthly to support a family of seven, including five school-aged children.
“It is difficult. We survive somehow. But I cannot find any other job,” he told IRIN.
His family is among the one-and-a-half million people – or some 5 percent of Sri Lanka’s 21 million population – who work in the tea sector, according to government estimates.
The most recent national poverty study conducted in 2009-2010 noted that 11.4 percent of these families lived below the national poverty line of 3,028 Sri Lankan rupees per month, or roughly $27.
Household income plays a major role in determining nutrition levels of under-fives, with those among the country’s poorest 20 percent three times more likely to be malnourished as those in the richest quintile, noted IPS.
In the government’s most recent demographic and health survey (DHS) conducted in 2006-2007 some 17 percent of under-fives surveyed were stunted – a sign of chronic malnutrition and lack of nutrients.
Nuwera Eliya District – 150km south of the economic capital of Colombo – and the adjoining Badulla District, which both have large tea plantations, recorded the highest stunting rates nationwide that year, 44 and 33 percent respectively.
Angela de Silva, a lecturer at the University of Colombo’s Faculty of Medicine and vice-president of the Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka said poverty and poor living conditions created an inter-generational cycle of malnutrition.
“The disadvantaged kid grows up to be a disadvantaged mother, often with early marriage, teenage pregnancies or starting off pregnancy with both micro- and macro-nutrient malnutrition; in turn she has a low birth-weight baby and poor pregnancy outcomes.”
Sri Lanka’s government has programmes that promote exclusive breastfeeding in the baby’s first six months – recommended by the World Health Organization to boost a child’s lifelong nutrition – and provide nutrients and supplements to vulnerable populations, including pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers and infants, in government clinics.
There are plans to “fine-tune” this breastfeeding promotion to target regions where malnutrition is high, said De Silva.
Education levels and mothers’ knowledge about basic healthcare play a major part in determining their children’s nutrition levels, said Kumari Navaratna, a senior health specialist at the World Bank’s Colombo office.
“The primary caregiver for a child is the mother and evidence again and again is showing that if the mother is knowledgeable on appropriate feeding and caring practices, she is able to provide the best care to the child.”
The Nutrition Society of Sri Lanka and Ministry of Health have advised taking into account regional economic and nutrition disparities as well as varying knowledge levels when tackling malnutrition.
Since May 2011 the government’s National Nutrition Council has established a multi-sectoral pilot project in areas with high malnutrition, including Nuwera Eliya District.
District health, agriculture and livestock departments are designing regional nutrition interventions, including growth monitoring programmes and child-friendly clinics.
Government welfare policies dating back to independence in 1948 have largely failed to achieve long-term nutrition improvements, said Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, head of the Point Pedro Institute of Development in Sri Lanka and research fellow at Monash University in Australia.
“Government welfare policies should focus on the quality of outputs rather than the quantity of inputs, which has been the case hitherto.”
To tackle malnutrition, policies have focused on handouts, such as nutritional supplements, without considering vulnerable groups’ needs separately, or policy efficacy, said Sarvananthan.
IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Who to look after the slaves?
This is all crap. The average worker, if he reports regularly for work can get a salary of Rs. 12000.00 per month, not taking into account the other members who work in the family. When free housing, free water, number of units electricity free, health needs looked after, his salary goes for food and clothing. He can find good food (the Government permitting, by reducing the price of essentials!!) for him and his children. But his money goes on buying Satellite TV Receivers, Mobile phones and prepaid cards, fancy goods, trips, wasting money on irreligious festivals, trade union and political tamashas. That’s where the money goes. So malnutrionists, look into these.
Since May 2011 the government’s National Nutrition Council has established a multi-sectoral pilot project in areas with high malnutrition, including Nuwera Eliya District.
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Can some one elaborate on this project?
It is good that some one had taken notice of this desperate situation. The estate workers are the most deprived community other than the gypsy community in SL.
Mr. Arumugam Thondaman! what have you got to say on this???
It is not merely in the area of health and nutrition – but in many other areas as well – the lot of these people of recent Indian origin, has been regrettable. This is such a shame because, until recently, they brought in the largest slice of the national wealth in terms of hard currency since the old British colonial days. Several Govts in Colombo have helped by setting new Ministries run by MPs of Indian origin – to improve the situation. But like many matters in the country, if one looks for development and improvement – it is seen visibly in the area of the personal enrichment and assets of the politicians concerned. Never in the lot of the struggling poor worker in the bush. Even the huge
Housing schemes have been scams – with the politicians concerned fattening themselves while giving away a few hundred badly constructed houses to these former linesmen.
The passion to lift the quality of their lives – that was foremost in the mind of the late Thondaman and later by the younger Minister P. Chandrasekeram appears to have died with them.
ISS
I certainly like to believe matters are as good as Estate Manager tells us. I am not disputing him. But I believe even if the worker reports daily for work many Estates apparently don’t provide this to him. I am also puzzled, if workers earn as much as Rs.12,000 per person why the largest supply of domestic labour to the Western Province – Colombo in particular – comes from there. I know some of the domestics coming now are reasonably well educated – some having passed the GCE (OL) as well. Almost all of them do not like to leave their environs to work as domestics – if they have a reasonable alternative.
Another worry Minister Muthu Sivalingam shared with me was very soon there will be a serious shortage of labour in the Estates – it began a few years ago.
Perhaps Estate Manager will kindly clarify – at least for academic purposes.
ISS
The decendants or relatives or those who were apperentices under or junior collegues of late NM, Colvin, Vivien, Bernard, Viwanathan,Kuneman,Moonasinghes,,Kandiahs,V.Ponnampalam, Karalasingham, Nagalingam, SD Bandaranayake, Edmund Samarkoddy and many other leftwingers,should comment on this article because Red parties are part of the successive GOSL on many occasions since 1948 and are currently so.
Number of current red colour party leaders are also old boys of Ananda College this what I understands.
” Ananda is proud of having produced almost all Socialist Leaders of the pre-independence era. Incidentally, Paranavadiya is the point where brave Sinhala forces loyal to the Monarch has ganged –up against invasive Portuguese forces.”
Almost all Socialists leaders of SL since 1948 had double standards when it came to the birth rights or parity of the status of the non Sinhala Buddhists.
So what do u suggest ? To launch another project to educate the men/women how to use their money productively/
What about the money spent on alcohol & smoking?
You have answered part of the question yourself. This is universal. Youth who are educated want to find “respectable” jobs in the cities, and they are leaving behind agricultural -based jobs. So they should be educated, that people have to go back to the earth to produce food and drink for the masses. Doing cushy jobs in Colombo will not produce food. Our education system is wrong in that it places emphasis only on book learning. This doesn’t apply only to the tea industry but to all agricultural enterprises.
It is incorrect to say that many females in the plantation sector go to Colombo to find jobs as domestics now. It is very difficult to find domestics these days. But, educated girls are becoming tea pluckers, which is a healthy sign. They know that plucking tea is a job which gives them a regular monthly income, stability and an opportunity to live with their friends and family without languishing in a house in Colombo with late working hours, cruel employers, sex maniacs, etc.
Mr. Muthu Sivalingam should be asked why he and the CWC endorsed fully the family planning programmes on estates during the JEDB and SLSPC period when workers were nearly forced into accepting sterilisation methods. By that we lost about 4 generations of plantation workers. This and lack of recruitment of workers at the right time made the remaining youth also look for employment elsewhere. Accountants and C.E.O.’s running plantation companies were more interested in the land-labour ratio and not the tea industry. So regular recruitment of workers took a back seat, and they are flogging the near-retirement-age plucker to still go on delivering the goods. We are paying for the sins of politicians and management pudits, who are now lamenting the shortage of workers who will enrich their coffers and union subscriptions.
malnutrition is possible as i’ve got 3 men from/grew up on tea country estates and all are sickly.I sent one recently to channel a doc at a good hospital (not lanka hosp!)recently
The socio-economic indicators of the indian orgin tamils are the worst among Sri Lankans. You cannot expect a remeady from the Sinhala majority racist governments which thinks that they are superior to other communities. Number of Indian politicians come and go to Sri Lanka but never look at the condtions of this people because they are tamils. For Indians tamils are enemies.
Why not get people from out side and train them for tea plucking?
There are many unemployed in the north & East & south.
Why can’t the management think out of the box and train other communities and get them to work in your estates?
if it is so lucrative many will come even for part time work. Like people going to wineyards for part time jobs .
Our society is such even if a tea-plucker (Male) brings home Rs.25,000 month he is not going to make it in the strata. Whereas in California an orange-grape picker is not looked down upon in the social ladder if he earns enought to live in a decent part of town and maintain a fair standard of living.
ISS
I intentionally left out drinking and smoking, because what does it matter, if a hardworking labourer takes a drink and smokes?
After all, these things are done even in the abode of the First Citizen of this land!
And what about the Minister who claims to represent the up-country Tamils, who went on a binge on 31st December, 2011 in Switzerland and toppled down the stairs causing injury to his head and leg?
Yes, this can be done. The Government should first realize how important the tea industry is, and bring forward proposals to bring people from other areas and settle them on the estates for plucking. The Plantation Management companies won’t do this. They don’t have a mandate for that.
What is the Government and the Plantation Ministry doing to save the tea industry from economic ruin in the future?
This should be a good eye-opener for the Government to bring down the cost of living in plantation and rural areas.
But California Orange/Grape pickers are mostly itinerant, Mexican and some are illegals… and they live pretty poor lives when compared to ‘middle America’
From my personal experience of having lived amongst them in the past, I can clearly say that the hard working estate labourers live deplorable lives. Their masters enjoy life to the maximum, except may be a handful who appreciate their plight.
They live like cattle in line rooms with no privacy or sanitary facilities. Individual houses are built for some I understand but not for all as it costs money. They are paid poorly compared to the rest of the nation in spite of the hard work they do, lack educational and adequate medical facilities. They are treated like slaves mostly because they are of Indian Origin and not having political leaders commited enough to look after their welfare.
The peria dorais of the past as well as the present, except a very few who have a conscience, drink to the extreme make merry and have a care free life with servants, gardners and drivers at their beck and call. I know of sinna dorais having batchelor parties with prostitues thrown in. These sinnadorais were kids not academically oriented from influential families having just left elite schools. I know of a few peria dorais dieing young due to excessive indulgence of the amber liquid thus leaving behind their wife and children to mend for themselves for the rest of their lives.
The senior executives of the management companies are having their part of the fun in Colombo, driving BMW’s, kids studying in International Schools or overseas. Their lifestyle is of the mega rich with their only aim being to keep the shareholders happy by showing profits at any cost. They charge exorbitant “management” fees which are hardly contested by the shareholders or others.
The tea industry will come to a standstill in the foreseeable future due to lack of labour unless someone seriously looks into the welfare of the tea estate labour.
Have you checked how much an ordinary peasant living in the Uva -eastern province area gets or makes, IRRESPECTIVE of whether he is Indian Tamil, Local tamil, Sinhalese or Muslim?
Actually, the estate worker is much better off than many rural people who eke out a living by doing shoddy cultivation, and selling a few things on roadside shacks, or doing coolie jobs. Unlike estate workers, they DONT HAVE A REGULAR INCOME. If we look at their ethnicity, purely statistically, the majority turn out to be sinhalese. Then there are tamils who are often worse off, while the muslims seem to fare a bit better.
The estate Tamils had a great leader who steered them through political mine fields, and created a vigorous community of Hill-country tamils. But the great leader’s son, who took over the father’s politcal mantel, is not even up to the knees of the father.
dont worry about the tea industry how about rubber cocunut and cofee soon it will cheaper to import tea from kenya the thriving industry is drugs and prosituation with the blessing of the ministers
TRN
How about a 50 % pay cut for these workers?
From 1st hand information I get from estates is that, the men wait to grab the salaries of the tea plucking wives at the end of the day.
then these men waste the money on drinking, while their children go hungry and develop malnutrition.
The urgent need is to have society centers/health where they (men & women) will get health education and counseling on economics.
how they could use the hard earned money wisely is what most of the poor people lack.
Good for the land lords !
Oh! I did not know that there is a law about estate laborers.
Should there be proposals to get hired labour from outside?
tyrone
If you want to maintain income parity between Sinhalese and the filthy rich estate workers purely on racial basis you could consider options that are open to you.
Please see below a list of brilliant ideas but the list is no means exhaustive, you can add your own ideas to the list. The more cruel your ideas are the better for Sinhalese poor.
1. Deport all the estate workers lock, stock and barrel back to India.
2. Impose 75% pay cut on all estate workers across the board.
3. Impose a special or punitive Tax (rate in the region of anything from 75 to 99 %) on estate workers and name it Tyrant Tax.
4. Internally displace them and the poor Sinhalese can swap residence and jobs with the rich estate workers.
5. Nationalise estate workers’ Swiss bank accounts and redistribute their money to the poor Sinhalese.
6. You can periodically raid the estate workers’ mansions and sack them.
Please throw some credible evidence supported by historical data before mourning about Sinhalese suffering is far greater than the rich estate worker.
North East Tamils were considered previlledged during the colonial period and Sinhalese kicked them hard since independence. The spin at the time was that the Tamils were occupying jobs that were supposed to be Sinhalese jobs. This was the propaganda made by stupid Sinhalese without any evidence.
Now you have started another propaganda without any satistical evidence against the deprived and most vulnerable people who lived in lines under neo slavery conditions.
I understand your concern for the Sinhalese.
However when you start comparing Sinhalese to Tamils well being that is where your intention is called into question.
Please don’t thread on the same path which led to disaster after disaster.
http://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/16297-what-remains-to-be-done-minimising-inequality-in-sri-lanka.html
Tyrone please read the above article you will get more information about the living standards of all citizens of SL.
Sri Lanka is not only for sinhala speaking citizens, there are many who contribute to our economy and all citizens of this nation should have equality.
Native Vedda,
Well said my friend. You are spot on! The ignorant the likes of Tyrone would refuse to face facts in their true light. The Estate Manager in this string too is trying to defend the indefensible as he too belongs to the class of peria dorais as described in my earlier blog, probably scared of losing his way of life. Most likely he is from the majority community to whom estate labourers are untouchable coolies from India!
Indian Estae workes are much better off than the villagers who live in close proximity to vast estaes that were thr lands taken over from these villages.
These villages have a subsistence life, no secure employment, no nearby medical services no proper roads etc.
Who looks after these poor.
Some of them used to work in the factories and now hardly any of them are emplyed by the Estate sector.
John
Here we go again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Udurawana
What the stupid Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims don’t realise is that the Sri Lankan state creates its own dependent society so that the people become weak, feeble, dispossed, marginalised and poweless irrespective of their race, religion or region.
This suits the dominant classes to grab wealth, power, land and their livelyhood.
People like Tyrone, John, Kalu, Hela, David, of this world have found and will find ways to divide the ordinary poor people and set one against the other. Caste, class, race, religion, regions come handy for the agents of the rulers. They get the crumbs and the rulers get the real stuff.
This is not new and it will not stop tomorrow.
The one nation advocated by the rulers and their agents is sham and it has lost its propaganda values.
Until the people irrespective of their differences assert their stake in state power and country’s wealth the idea of one nation is a mirage for which people are asked to sacrify their lives.
What a tragedy.