• Unions allege many estates don’t have toilets for workers

Female estate workers often neglect their health and sanitation due to a lack of toilet facilities in estates, according to estate sector trade unions.

“Many female estate workers often go an entire day without using the bathroom or changing their sanitary napkins due to fears of being sexually assaulted by surrounding males,” Voice of the Plantation People (VOPP) Executive Director, Anthony Jesudasan, told The Daily Morning yesterday (3). “If toilets are used at all, it is the males who usually use them and there have been cases of them trying to harass female workers when using the washroom.”

Jesudasan said that many tea estates do not build toilets for the workers to use and many workers often utilise the nearby forest. However, many females fear that males will follow them into the forest and rape them.

“We receive a lot of complaints from female estate workers who tell us that there are no facilities and no privacy for women,” Jesudasan said, adding that: “As a result, they prefer to risk the lack of sanitation instead of encountering unwanted attention and harassment by males.”

Former Minister of Estate Infrastructure and General Secretary of the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), Jeevan Thondaman confirmed that several estates do not build toilets for their employees resulting in their discomfort.