On Lanka’s tea estates, maternal health leaves a lot to be desired
September 24, 2014 08:18 am
A
mud path winds its up way uphill, offering views on either side of row after
row of dense bushes and eventually giving way to a cluster of humble homes,
surrounded by ragged, playful children.
Their
mothers either look far too young, barely adults themselves, or old beyond
their years, weathered by decades of backbreaking labour on the enormous tea
estates of Sri Lanka.
Rani*
is a 65-year-old mother of six, working eight-hour shifts on an estate in Sri
Lanka’s Central Province. Her white hair, a hunched back and fallen teeth make
her appear about 15 years older than she is, a result of many decades spent
toiling under the hot sun.
She
tells IPS that after her fifth child, overwhelmed with the number of mouths she
had to feed, she visited the local hospital to have her tubes tied, but gave
birth to a son five years later.
Though
she is exhausted at the end of the day, and plagued by the aches and pains that
signal the coming of old age, she is determined to keep her job, so her
children can go to school.
“I
work in the estates so that they won’t have to,” she says with a hopeful smile.
Her
story is poignant, but not unique among workers in Sri Lanka’s vast tea sector,
comprised of some 450 plantations spread across the country.
Women
account for over 60 percent of the workforce of abut 250,000 people, all of
them descendants of indentured servants brought from India by the British over
a century ago to pluck the lucrative leaves.
But
while Sri Lankan tea itself is of the highest quality, raking in some 1.4
billion dollars in export earnings in 2012 according to the Ministry of
Plantation Industries, the health of the labourers, especially the women,
leaves a lot to be desired.
Priyanka
Jayawardena, research officer for the Colombo-based Institute of Policy Studies
of Sri Lanka, tells IPS that “deep-rooted socio-economic factors” have led to
health indicators among women and children on plantations that are consistently
lower than the national average.
The
national malnutrition rate for reproductive-age mothers, for instance, is 16
percent, rising to 33 percent for female estate workers. And while 16 percent
of newborn babies nationwide have low birth weight, on estates that number
rises significantly, to one in every three newborns.
A
higher prevalence of poverty on estates partly accounts for these discrepancies
in health, with 61 percent of households on estates falling into the lowest
socio-economic group (20 percent of wealth quintile), compared to eight percent
and 20 percent respectively for urban and rural households.
Other
experts say that cultural differences also play a role, since estate
populations, and especially tea workers, have been relatively isolated from
broader society.
“Many
women are uneducated, and tend to be careless about their own health, and the
health of their children,” a field worker with the Centre for Social Concern
(CSC), an NGO based in the Nuwara Eliya district in central Sri Lanka, tells
IPS.
“They
have a very taxing job and so spend less time thinking about food and
nutrition,” she states.
In
fact, as Jayawardena points out, only 15 percent of under-five children on
estates have a daily intake of animal protein, compared to 40-50 percent among
rural and urban populations.
The
same is true for daily consumption of yellow vegetables and fruits, as well as
infant cereals – in both cases the average intake among children on estates is
40 percent, compared to 60 percent in rural and urban areas.
Breastfeeding
patterns are also inadequate, with just 63 percent of estate workers engaging
in exclusive breastfeeding for the first four months of a child’s life,
compared to 77 percent in urban areas and 86 percent in rural areas, according
to research conducted by the Institute of Policy Studies.
The
situation is made worse by the demands of the industry. Since many women are
daily wage labourers, earning approximately 687 rupees (just over five dollars)
each day, few can afford to take the required maternity leave.
But
even when alternatives are provided by the estate management, experts say, a
lack of awareness and education leaves children without proper attention and
care.
Jayawardena
tells IPS that almost half of all women on estates drop out of school after the
primary level, compared to a national dropout rate of 15 percent. Literacy
levels are low, and so even awareness campaigns often fail to reach the
targeted audience.
“Women
on the estates do not believe they have many options in life beyond working on
the plantations,” the CSC field officer says.
“Most
are extremely poor, and from childhood they are exposed to very little – there
are hardly any playgrounds, libraries, gathering places or social activities on
the estates. So they tend to get married early and become mothers at a very
young age.”
Though
the national average for teenage pregnancies stands at roughly 6.4 percent, it
shoots up to ten percent among estate workers, resulting in a cycle in which
malnourished mothers give birth to unhealthy babies, who will also likely
become mothers at a young age.
“If
women are the primary breadwinners among the estate population, generating the
bulk of household revenue in a sector that is feeding the national economy,
then maternal health should be a priority,” Mythri Jegathesan, assistant
professor in the department of anthropology at Santa Clara University in
California, tells IPS.
“Any
form of agricultural labour is hard on the body, and many of the estate workers
in Sri Lanka work until they are seven or eight months pregnant. They need to
be acknowledged, and more attention given to their wellbeing and health,” she
adds.
Several
NGOs and civil society organisations have been working diligently alongside the
government and the private sector to boost women’s health outcomes.
According
to Chaaminda Jayasinghe, senior project manager of the plantation programme for
CARE International-Sri Lanka, the situation is changing positively.
The
emergence of the Community Development Forum (CDF) introduced by CARE in
selected tea estates is providing space and a successful model for inclusive
development for estate communities, he tells IPS.
This
has already resulted in better living conditions and health outcomes among
estate communities while mainstreaming plantation communities into the larger
society.
*Not
her real name.
Courtesy:
IPS