A new Amnesty International report has alleged that Malaiyaha Tamil workers on private tea estates and smallholdings in Sri Lanka face abuses meeting several international indicators of forced labour.
The report focuses on estates in the Southern Province and documents what Amnesty describes as systemic exploitation of the historically marginalised community. Workers, it says, are subjected to intimidation, threats, physical violence, harassment, debt bondage, restrictions on movement, and poor living and working conditions — practices the rights group says align with forced-labour indicators set by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Amnesty alleged that affected workers are effectively denied access to Sri Lanka’s existing labour protections, and that the state has failed to ensure their rights to social security, unionisation and justice. As an ILO member and a signatory to treaties including the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Sri Lanka is obliged to protect workers from discrimination and exploitation, the report noted.
The Malaiyaha Tamils are descendants of labourers brought from southern India under British colonial rule. Their reliance on estate employers for housing, livelihoods and welfare leaves them highly vulnerable to abuse and fearful of challenging it, with workers across the estates examined reporting fear of eviction.
The findings add to mounting scrutiny of plantation-sector conditions. The Human Rights Commission summoned officials over estate wages earlier this month, while the government recently launched a contributory pension scheme for estate workers. Police have separately arrested suspects over assaults on plantation labourers.
