Journal of Tea Science Research. 2015, Vol. 5, No. 5, 1-8
2
socio-economic condition of the laborers did not get
adequate attention from any corner.
Generally, it is assumed that the people working in
different tea gardens all over in Bangladesh have been
leading a miserable life but the real situation is yet to
be investigated. Very few micro-level studies on tea
plantation workers have been done so far. The
findings of some studies show the sub-human life of
tea workers both in terms of working environment,
living conditions and health and sanitation security
(Khan, 1991; BPMI, 1997; Saha 2001; Majumder and
Roy, 2012; Ahmed et al., 2014). As most of tea
workers live below the poverty line (Barkat, et al.,
2010) and their poor income (Ahmed et al., 2014;
Majumder and Roy, 2012) often lead them to live
without basic human rights. Laborers are to
accommodate themselves in a small dilapidated house,
sometimes with their pet animals (Das and Islam;
2006; Majumder and Roy, 2012). Workers living in
tea gardens are not facilitated with sanitary toilet
rather majority of them are inured to use open place
for excretion of faeces (Khan, 1991), even they are
very unaware of or often ignore their rights regarding
sanitation (Das and Islam; 2006). Even faeces are
generally disposed to nearby water bodies or throwing
in the jungle (Chowdhury et al
.,
2011). Open
defecation causing various excreta related diseases
and not practiced with washing hand after defecation
(Ahmed, et al., 2006). High rate of illiteracy,
ignorance, social exclusion, economic hardship, etc.
bound them to maintain traditional life without
minimum opportunities.
Workers of tea gardens, in total, are deprived of
housing, food, clothing, health, education, etc. which
are basic human rights. This violation of rights causes
various kinds of problems in the society such as
poverty, illiteracy, drug addiction, disease, crime,
juvenile delinquency etc. Therefore, socio-economic
condition and educational status of tea workers is a
field of investigation that can be useful for society as
well as tea gardens. In respect of present study
following objectives were considered;
(1) To know the socio economic and educational
condition of tea garden workers.
(2) To inform the tea workers about human rights.
2 Methodology
This study had been carried out in different tea estates
of Sylhet division. For the study we selected some tea
estates where 2000 people were surveyed. The
selected gardens are Malnichara, Lukkatura, Langla,
Gazipur. In this study secondary data collected from
garden authority, books, journals, newspapers, and
internet etc. Primary data collected through interview
schedule from the respondent. This research involves
collection of data in order to answer question regarding
the current status of the subject of the study. A
semi-structured questionnaire was prepared for
interview the respondent. Random sampling procedure
has been followed to select sample for the study.
As the respondents were selected purposively, so their
age limit was not under consideration. Among the
participants majority were between 25 to 40 years and
nearly one-fifth were between 40 to 55 years. It was
also found that few of them were below 20 years or
under aged. More than halves were female workers.
The research is descriptive in type. We conducted this
research to describe the human rights condition of tea
garden community. Descriptive research is also known
as statistical research, describes data or characteristics
about the population or phenomena being studied. For
the analysis of data simple statistical method is used.
3 Results & Discussion:
The findings and the results by the analysis are given
below:-
3.1 Population Distribution
Our study revealed that, we took different aged people
for our study. 32% of the population belongs to the
age group of below 20 years. 58% of the people in the
age group of 20-59 years and the people above age
group 59 is 10% of sample population. The result
shows that are the real earning member of the society,
which is the active workforce of the community, are
the highest in percentage. And people below 20 years
are mainly child labors. Similar data was found in
Assam’s research (Saikia et al., 2013)
3.2 Marital status of workers:
Our study shows that 94% of the workers are married,
4% are widower, 1% widow and 1% unmarried. A
