Child labor is common in the tea plantations of West Bengal, where children are kept out of school and forced to work long hours harvesting tea in often treacherous conditions.Many of these children come from the Dalit caste, and their families may have been indentured servants in the tea industry for generations. But the Catholic Church in India has launched an effort to reduce child labor and indentured servitude in the tea industry. You can help them by supporting Fair Trade certified plantations.
In the tea plantations of West Bengal, a region of India that produces massive quantities of tea for international export, over two thousand children work alongside their families harvesting and processing the crop. These children are prevented from attending school and work long hours, often in hot conditions with little clean water and less-than-adequate sanitation. They earn pennies a day for their work, when they are paid at all.
For many families, life on the tea plantation and the poverty-wages, mistreatment, and indentured servitude that comes with it has existed for generations. But social stigma against their caste makes it difficult for adults to find higher-paying work, so whole families labor with no end in sight.
Fortunately, the Diocese of Jalpaiguri -- part of the Roman Catholic church -- has taken up the cause of child labor in the West Bengal tea industry. They've developed an economic empowerment and educational program specifically for Dalit children working in tea plantations. Social workers have been teaching Dalit families about the importance of education, paying school fees for children, and providing transportation to local schools. Since the program began in 2004, they've moved over 500 children from the tea plantation into school, almost a quarter of the total child laborers in the area.
But despite the effectiveness of the church's programs, child labor remains a significant part of the tea industry.
In part that's due to the oppression of certain groups in India, like the Dalits, who remain in indentured servitude for generations. In part it's because of a complete lack of oversight of working conditions in India, where child labor is technically illegal. And in part it's due to a desire to keep costs down (child labor is cheaper than adult labor) to maximize profit and compete in an international market. The Diocese of Jalpaiguri is only able to solve a third of the problem with education. The other two thirds can be solved by Fair Trade.
Fair Trade certified tea means that no child, forced, or slave labor was used to produce the tea, and that workers were paid a living wage. When consumer demand for Fair Trade tea goes up, more companies will buy Fair Trade certified tea and more plantations will become Fair Trade certified to meet the market demand. For example, Honest Tea recently announced they were going 100% Fair Trade, hugely expanding the demand for Fair Trade tea. Snapple, however, buys 0% of it's tea from Fair Trade certified sources. If they switched just 10% of tea purchases to Fair Trade, they'd make a big difference in the lives of Dalit children in West Bengal.
Tell Snapple it's time to live up to their motto and actually use the best stuff on earth to make their product: Fair Trade certified tea. By signing the petition, you'll help further the existing efforts to reduce child labor in the tea industry for all children.
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Amanda Kloer is a Change.org Editor and has been a full-time abolitionist in several capacities for seven years. Follow her on Twitter @endhumantraffic Catholic Church Fights Child Labor on Indian Tea Plantations | End Human Trafficking | Change.org
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