Saturday, June 18, 2016

Sri Lanka's tea

I drink tea almost everyday but I'm not picky about the quality, the flavors or the origins. One thing I know, tea is one of the main and famous products of Sri Lanka. 
The card was sent by Ara.

Tea production is one of the main sources of foreign exchange for Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is the world's fourth-largest producer of tea and it employs, directly or indirectly, over 1 million people.
The humidity, cool temperatures, and rainfall of the country's central highlands provide a climate that favors the production of high-quality tea. The industry was introduced to the country in 1867 by James Taylor, a British planter who arrived in 1852.

Photograph by Lasantha Lakmal
Directly and indirectly, over one million Sri Lankans are employed in the tea industry. A large proportion of the workforce is young women and the minimum working age is twelve. 
Girls typically follow their mothers, grandmothers and older sisters on the plantations, and the women are expected to perform most of the domestic duties.
In the plantation housing system, women and girls have no privacy from the male workers, which places them at a higher risk for sexual harassment.
The tea plantation is structured in a social hierarchy and the women, who often consist of 75%–85% of the work force in the industry, are at the lowest social strata and are powerless. 
Some concern towards women's rights have been made to the plantation workers in Sri Lanka, resulting in some 85 neighborhood women's groups being formed across the country, educating them in gender, leadership and preventing violence against women. - in: wikipedia

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