An Unfair Trade: Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tea Workers

Since childhood, Karthika has spent her life in the tea fields of Ella, picking leaves to meet her daily quota. For 18 kilograms, she earns just $4.36 a day. Even after last year’s government pay increase, soaring inflation and food prices have wiped out any real gains. 

Many women pick leaves barefoot, braving swarms of insects, scorching sun and monsoon rains, mud, leeches, and the ever-present threat of snakes.

A woman works in the tea fields near Nuwara Eliya, a hill country city in central Sri Lanka. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

Sri Lanka’s billion‑dollar tea industry depends on the labor of hundreds of thousands of Malaiyaha Tamils who have worked the central highlands’ plantations for generations. Most are women, yet deeply entrenched male‑dominated hierarchies leave them with little control over their working conditions.

Although Ceylon tea commands premium prices worldwide, those who produce it see none of the profits. Workers continue to live in squalid conditions. Their isolated line‑houses are cramped, colonial‑era barracks still owned by plantation companies. Today, about 1.5  million descendants of indentured laborers originally from India – and brought to Sri Lanka by British colonial authorities – live in Sri Lanka, with roughly 470,000 still residing on plantations.

An aerial view of lush tea plantations in Sri Lanka’s central highlands. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

After independence in 1948, the Ceylon Citizenship Act stripped nearly 1 million Tamil laborers of citizenship and voting rights, branding them “temporary immigrants” despite generations on the island and triggering mass repatriations to India. Citizenship was restored only in 2003.

Access to sanitation, education, and upward mobility still remains out of reach for most Tamil workers. 

In Sri Lanka’s tea estates, workers must fulfill their daily plucking quota of leaves before they can finish work. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

In December 2025, Cyclone  Ditwah lashed the island with torrential rain, unleashing catastrophic floods and mudslides across the tea zone.  More than 600 people were killed, with many still missing beneath landslides. Scores of century‑old homes were washed away; the fragile line‑houses were built on unstable slopes.

These same dwellings, controlled by plantation companies, have trapped generations of workers.

A Tamil family home stands beside a tea estate in Sri Lanka’s central highlands, where many plantation workers live. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

Sri Lanka produces roughly 300 million kilograms of tea each year, ranking fourth globally after China, India, and Kenya. The sector employs around 700,000  workers, mostly women, and generates over $1 billion annually, about 11 percent of national export revenue.

Yet, a 2023 Guardian investigation found that many tea pickers struggle to afford food and are forced to live in degrading, overcrowded housing even as they produce one of the world’s most consumed luxury exports.

Younger generations are leaving plantations to work in garment factories or abroad as domestic workers, desperate to escape a system that has entrapped their families for centuries.

A Tamil community near Ella, in Sri Lanka’s hill country, where many residents lack reliable access to basic services such as water and sanitation. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

During his 2022 visit, U.N. Special Rapporteur Tomoya Obokata observed that five to ten workers often shared a 10‑by‑12‑foot room with no windows, kitchen, running water, or electricity. Several families typically shared a single toilet, and medical care was provided by unqualified staff. 

“These substandard living conditions, combined with the harsh labor environment, represent clear indicators of forced labor and may amount to serfdom in some instances,” Obokata reported.

Those who survived the cyclone now live in fear of starvation, of the next landslide, and of seeing their children inherit the same fate.

“We’ve heard the promises about new houses for decades,” said one worker.

Musicians play during Vinayaka Chaturthi festivities in a village near Ella, Sri Lanka. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

An estimated  100,000 homes were damaged or destroyed nationwide, with the World Bank estimating losses at $4.1  billion. The central tea highlands bore the brunt of the devastation, exposing the fragility of workers’ lives and livelihoods.

Successive governments have pledged fair wages and land ownership, yet political backtracking and resistance from plantation owners have kept reforms stalled. 

“Despite all the big promises, nothing has changed for us,” Karthika said.

Women bring traditional offerings to a temple during Vinayaka Chaturthi celebrations in Ella, Sri Lanka. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

During the 2024 presidential race, Tamil tea workers, about 3.5 percent of the electorate, were again heavily courted with familiar political promises. 

Both Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa pledged land ownership reforms, while Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) government, elected on a platform of sweeping change, promised a daily wage of 2,000 rupees (around $6.40) for plantation laborers.

The  2026  budget raises daily wages to 1,750 rupees, but labor advocates warn that attendance‑based incentives could still reduce workers’ earnings.

And the risks remain large for workers living in the tea planting zones. The December  2025  floods underscored their vulnerability to future disasters. For days, dozens of estates were cut off, and workers say both government relief and corporate aid fell far short of promises.

Communities on uneven slopes in Sri Lanka are vulnerable to flooding and landslides, with many homes severely damaged in the latest cyclone. Photo by Nicholas Muller.

Landslides continue to threaten their hillside homes, wages remain among the lowest in the formal sector, and many families struggle to break free from the centuries‑old plantation system that governs their lives. The gulf between legal recognition and social equality for Tamils remains vast.

Experts and advocates say genuine progress will depend on international scrutiny of the tea industry, stronger safeguards for workers’ rights, and sustained pressure on multinational buyers to actually raise labor and housing standards. 

The question remains what “fair trade” labels actually guarantee for Sri Lanka and across the global tea industry.

A Tamil priest offers prayers at a community temple in Ella, Sri Lanka, during Vinayaka Chaturthi, a major Tamil festival honoring Lord Ganesha celebrated in September. Photo by Nicholas Muller.