Parliament launches investigation on alleged harassment of tea workers after BBC expose
Parliament launches investigation on alleged harassment of workers on Kenya tea farm after BBC expose on Monday, February 20
Parliament launches investigation on alleged harassment of workers on Kenya tea farm after BBC expose on Monday, February 20.
National Assembly Deputy Speaker, Gladys Boss Shollei, on Tuesday, February 21, gave the House Committee on Labour two weeks to finalize its investigations.
Kericho Women representative Beatrice Kemei had asked the Departmental Committee on Labour for a comment about the allegations of harassment made in the BBC exposé.
Speaking during a sitting on Tuesday, February 21, Kemei denounced the deplorable state and conditions workers were subjected to in the tea sector, basing her argument on the testimonies aired in the investigative piece.
She decried that desperate workers were subjected to heinous acts by managers with less or no action from the government and the administrations of the companies in question.
“Today, I have been reminded that slavery still exists in this nation. I cannot explain how a man has violated women in tea plantations for 30 years, and nothing has been done,” she stated in her petition.
Her statement was made the day after a British broadcaster’s exposé revealed what could have been years of suffering to women employed on tea estates in the Rift Valley.
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In the exposé, female employees of some of the notable tea-producing enterprises in the country testified about their encounters with their supervisors as a requirement for getting a position on the estate.
A journalist went undercover and posed as a job seeker in one of the tea firms, only to be subjected to the same demands by the recruiting authority.
Subsequently, the expose sparked an online outrage as Kenyans from various quarters denounced the level of impunity projected in the investigative piece.
Two of the tea firms mentioned in the expose announced the dismissal of their managers and commenced investigations as a reaction to the predicaments aired by some of its workers.
International retail chains threatened to boycott tea products from the implicated companies unless firm measures were taken.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labour had yet to issue a statement on the matter by the time of this publication.
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