Low wages on India's tea plantations leave workers vulnerable to modern slavery.

In Assam, India's largest tea producing state, at least 4,754 children went missing between 2012 and 2017. 
​
​2,753 were girls.

We're asking T2 to commit to a living wage for tea workers.

Your voice can make a difference.

​Are you one of the 9.8 million Aussies that drinks a cuppa or (T)2 a week?

When it comes to tea, Australians have consumer power.
​YOU have power.

Send a message to T2.

We need as many voices as possible to influence T2.

We're working with Be Slavery Free on this campaign. The button below will direct you to their website, where you'll find a form to email T2 directly.

​​It will take as long as boiling the kettle!

Host a tea party.

Do you love tea, or just have friends that do? 

​Do you have 20 minutes to add to your team meeting or drinks with friends? 

We need champions, like you, to hold a tea party & influence T2.​

Learn more about the experiences of tea workers in Assam.

Make yourself a cuppa and watch our virtual tea party with Carolyn Kitto, National Co-director, Be Slavery Free.

Tea workers need a wage that allows them to live with safety and dignity.

LOW WAGES

Tea workers in Assam receive as little as AUD$2.80 per day.

​This is not enough to meet their basic needs.
FEW ALTERNATIVE OPPORTUNITIES

​Under Indian law, plantations must provide housing, food, sanitation facilities and child care. Employers inflate the value of these benefits to justify low wages. As tea must be processed soon after it is picked, workers have no option but to live on the plantations, if they want a job.
​
WOMEN & GIRLS BEAR THE BURDEN OF POVERTY
Women take on the most labour-intensive, lowest paid job of picking tea leaves. Traffickers prey on their desire for a better life, deceiving them with false promises and trapping them in exploitation and sexual slavery in Indian cities.
A living income helps workers send their children to school, withstand crises, avoid debt and protect themselves against traffickers’ deceptive offers.
To find out more about a living wage go to the Global Living Wage Coalition.

Why T2?

Did you know T2 is owned by Unilever?
​​Unilever, along with 2 other companies, owns roughly 80% of the global tea market. 
Unilever sources their tea from both company-owned tea plantations and a network of suppliers, that includes over 300 suppliers in Assam alone. Unilever has industry leading policies for fair compensation for their direct employees, but we would like to see these extended to their suppliers to ensure tea workers receive a living wage.

A living wage is within reach for tea workers in Assam. 

Oxfam estimates that workers on plantations in Assam currently receive around AU$0.06 per 100g of bagged black tea. They would require only the equivalent of AU$0.15 to enable a living wage to be paid. 
​
T2 sells 100g of their Assam black tea for AU$12.
We’re asking T2 to commission an independent study of what a living wage would be for tea workers in Assam and develop a plan to raise their wages and living conditions to achieve this within 3 years.

Resources

Learn more
  • Watch this short video on the truth about tea plantations (2 minutes).
  • Watch this interview with Manju, who was trafficked from a tea plantation in Assam – CNN Freedom Project (4 minutes).
  • Read this Guardian article about how poverty wages for tea pickers are fuelling a trade in child slavery (5 minute read). ​
  • Read Be Slavery Free's Not my cup of tea report on human trafficking in Assam (20 minute read).
  • Read Traidcraft Exchange's report on how the tea industry traps women in poverty in Assam (15 minute read).
  • Read Oxfam's report on the human cost of Assam tea. It is based on research across 50 tea plantations in Assam (20 minute read).
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