Protect Malaiyaha Tamil workers in Sri Lanka’s southern private tea estates from forced labour

For generations, Malaiyaha Tamil workers in Sri Lanka’s Southern Province private-owned tea estates have been kept in a perpetual cycle of unfair labour practices through decades of socio-economic exclusion.

Send a message urging the Minister of Labour Anil Jayantha Fernando to investigate labour abuses in southern private tea estates and to protect Malaiyaha Tamil workers from forced labour and other human rights abuses.

What’s the problem?

Since their arrival in the early 19^th century, Malaiyaha Tamils have been one of the most discriminated communities in Sri Lanka. Largely relegated to invisible work in tea plantations, the community has endured two centuries of systemic and structural exclusion, despite tea exports being the country’s second largest export revenue.   

In the southern private tea estates, workers are trapped in a system that may amount to debt bondage, where low wages force them to live in squalor in employer-controlled housing and take on debt for their daily essentials. All the while, their movements are controlled, their complaints unheard and their voices silenced.  

On paper, Sri Lanka has labour laws and constitutional protections for workers. But Malaiyaha Tamils are not able to access these protections despite living in a system where debt and abuse become control, and employers operate with impunity. It’s time to end this injustice! 

What can you do to help?

Send a message directly urging the Minister of Labour Amil Jayantha Fernando to conduct labour inspections identifying labour abuses on private estates and small holdings, ensuring investigations and prosecutions, and protecting Malaiyaha Tamil workers from forced labour and other human rights abuses.