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Prof.

Anil Jayantha

Fernando

Government of Sri Lanka

To,

Anil Jayantha Fernando,

Honorable Minister of Labour, Government of Sri Lanka.

I am writing to express serious concern about human rights and labour abuses faced by Malaiyaha Tamil tea workers in Sri Lanka’s southern private tea estates.

Findings from Amnesty International’s latest report, Abandoned by the State, Trapped in Private Estates: Rights Abuses against Sri Lanka's Malaiyaha Tamil Tea Workers, highlights the extent to which the rights of the Malaiyaha Tamil community on private estates and smallholdings in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka have been undermined. In particular, it raises concerns around the prevalence of numerous indicators of forced labour. It also highlights state failures to protect and fulfil the right to social security, freedom of association and access to justice, and to ensure adequate labour monitoring and inspections.

The report examines intersectional discrimination faced by workers on private estates and smallholdings based on their Malaiyaha Tamil identity, which materializes in income insecurity, dependence on employment-linked housing, limited literacy, and accumulated debt. This discrimination has resulted in a position of heightened vulnerability that is exploited by employers to subject Malaiyaha Tamil workers to forced labour. These workers are also subjected to verbal, physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the estate management. They are trapped by cycles of debt occasioned by illegal wage deductions, undefined repayment terms and debt accrual from inflated food prices, which has resulted in workers being tied to an employer in a situation resembling debt bondage. Estate managements have also imposed restrictions on workers’ freedom of movement beyond the estate boundaries.

The report shows how estate employers consistently casualize the labour of the Malaiyaha Tamil tea workers, denying them access to the benefits they are entitled to under Sri Lankan employment law. These workers clearly meet the threshold for employment status, yet are frequently denied social security benefits such as maternity payments, pension contributions and sickness benefits.

The testimonies in the reporthighlightsthe extensive abuse and poor working conditions experienced by Malaiyaha Tamil workers on estates in Matara and Galle districts. Their experiences clearly contravene national employment and criminal legislation, but the research shows that workers experience multiple difficulties in accessing justice. These include barriers to an effective remedy in the case of a dispute or complaint, lack of support from authorities such as the local labour department office or the police, as well as the absence of effective state oversight and regulation of labour conditions on private estates and smallholdings in the Southern Province. Workers also have limited opportunities to exercise their freedom of association by joining or starting up a trade union because estates frequently prohibit and penalize workers engaging in union action. The lack of state oversight and the barriers to legal action increase the vulnerability of Malaiyaha Tamil workers to forced labour and abusive and unlawful working conditions.

The Sri Lankan government has clear obligations under international human rights law and international labour standards to prevent such abuse.

I urge you to:

- Immediately initiate a targeted special labour inspection to determine the nature and extent of labour rights abuses on private estates and smallholdings.

- Support investigations, criminal prosecutions and appropriate civil proceedings, and ensure that penalties imposed by law are strictly enforced.

- Ensure that relevant public authorities take proactive steps to identify and address barriers faced by the Malaiyaha Tamil community in accessing socio-economic rights, including adequate housing.

Yours sincerely,

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