This article is part of research towards a guide on options for morning tea.
Want to make sure your morning cuppa is free of child labour and forced labour? This article will tell you how! Jump through to our recommendations section or start at the beginning to learn why this is an important issue.
Estimated read time: 18 minutes
Black tea (the tea you’ll find in English breakfast or Earl Grey tea) is made from the same plant as green teas, so we cover the issues in their production together. We’ll just refer to them as ‘tea’.
Some tea is grown by smallholder farmers, particularly in Kenya and other countries in East Africa but the majority is grown on large estates in China, India and Sri Lanka. Tea requires a lot of land to grow, so is often grown in rural areas far from law-enforcement officers. It is also a labour-intensive crop, and the prices it sells for vary considerably. All of these factors mean that it is a crop where child labour is commonplace and forced labour is not infrequently used.
Of the world’s top 10 tea producing countries, child labour is a particular issue in Kenya, where around 15% of the workforce are estimated to be children. China, India and Turkey are also considered likely to use child labour in their tea industries. Children are involved in actual farming (planting, weeding, picking tea, applying fertiliers etc.) as well as gathering firewood for tea-processing factories.to workers
Forced labour in the tea industry is less well documented, but is considered a risk in seven of the top ten tea producing countries: China, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Evidence of human welfare issues in herbal and fruit teas is much less well documented and it is difficult to be confident how much of an issue this is. We have only been able to find concrete information on two herbs in particular:
However, because the ingredients in these teas tend to be perishable products with volatile prices, we consider them all to be at risk of forced and child labour. The only herbal teas we consider to be at low risk are pure peppermint and pure spearmint.
Just Kai has looked at all the ethical claims and certifications we were able to find on tea sold in New Zealand supermarkets, health food stores and commercial supply companies. Some turned out not to be very helpful at identifying slave-free tea but we were able to identify some trustworthy ones as well. We’ll look at actual certifications first, then at uncertified claims made by brands.
We found the following certifications in use: WFTO, Fair for Life, Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance, Fair Wild, Ethical Tea Partnership and BCorp. Of those, we recommend all but the Ethical Tea Partnership and BCorp, but we think that WFTO, Fair for Life and Fairtrade are the best.
Unlike some other certifications, WFTO doesn’t issue different standards for different commodities. However, you can be confident all WFTO-certified products have involved:
We are confident that WFTO certified tea is free of child and forced labour and that the workers received decent pay and conditions. The only WFTO certified tea we are aware of in New Zealand is the Trade Aid tea range.
All Fairtrade certified products have been subject to audits to check that no child labour or forced labour was used on the farms where they were grown (and any instances found are remediated); there have also been audits to check that various health and safety standards were adhered to. Growers are also paid a premium that is to be used for things that benefit the community and, in some cases, sustainability projects.
Most Fairtrade certified commodities are subject to a minimum price (which is set at a level that means the producers earn enough to live) BUT this is not the case for herbal teas. For herbal teas, a buyer must simply pay 15% more than they otherwise intended to (which seems like a system very open to abuse). For black and green teas there are a range of minimum prices that apply based on the region in which the tea was grown and the type of tea concerned.
The lack of a minimum price is less of an issue for herbal teas that are grown on plantations, as plantations are required to be progressing towards a liveable wage for all staff (as well as having other required benefits, such as sick leave and holiday pay). However for herbs grown by smallholder farmers there are no such requirements, so these farmers could well be being paid less than they really need to live on.
In general, we believe you can be confident that any Fairtrade certified tea was produced without child labour or forced labour and in decent working conditions. In the case of black and green teas, you can also be confident a fair price was paid, enabling decent wages. This may well not have been the case for herbal and fruit teas with Fairtrade certification.
The only tea brand commonly seen in supermarkets with Fairtrade certification is Scarborough Fair. Clipper tea (found in health food shops) is also Fairtrade certified, as are several of the brands available to the corporate market.
Fair for Life certification is rarely seen in New Zealand, but some of the Pukka tea range has it. It is broadly similar to Fairtrade in terms of the benefits workers are offered (sick leave, holiday pay etc.), and it involves audits to check for forced and child labour and safe working conditions. It also requires that all workers are paid at least a living wage by at least the third year after a given farm becoming certified. Lastly, a given auditor can only audit a given farm for three years in a row, which likely reduces corruption.
We are confident that Fair for Life certified tea is free of child and forced labour, that the workers had reasonable working conditions and that most workers were adequately paid.
We are confident the following certifications do a good job at preventing child labour and forced labour; however they do not ensure workers have as good working condtions as those listed earlier. We still recommend these certifications, but advise you to purchase products certified with A list certifications where you are able.
Rainforest Alliance certification is currently in the process of merging with the certification UTZ. You will more commonly see one of the Rainforest Alliance logos on these products, but you’ll still sometimes see a UTZ logo. They all mean the same thing.
Rainforest Alliance certified teas are subject to regular audits to check for child labour and forced labour, and all producers must have remediation processes in place for any cases that are found. Hired workers (who make up the majority of the tea workforce) must be paid at least the relevant legal minimum wage. Producers are required to be working towards paying a living wage (although there’s no time-frame required for this), and large producers (who dominate the tea industry) must increase wages annually at least in line with inflation. There are also various requirements for days off, breaks, health and safety etc. but no requirements for producers to give workers annual leave or sick leave.
Some of the Red Seal tea range are Rainforest Alliance certified, as are several teas available to corporate/commercial customers.
Fair Wild certifies wild-harvested herbs to both environmental and social standards. We trust those standards to be OK from a human welfare standpoint as Fair for Life sees them as having equivalent standards to their own, but we have been unable to find standards documents online to check in detail. We are confident they will be checking for child labour and forced labour, but are unsure what else will be important to them. Some of the Pukka tea range is Fair Wild certified.
The Ethical Tea Partnership is a group composed of many major tea brands. They aim to improve the economics of tea (which could reduce rates of forced labour and child labour) as well as to work towards equality for women and young people and improve environmental sustainability. However, while they provide guidance and training in these areas, no companies within the partnership are required to adhere to any particular standards with regards to human rights.
We have no reason to believe teas bearing the Ethical Tea Partnership logo are reliably produced without forced labour or child labour and do not recommend them. You’ll see their logo on Twinings tea packets as well as on the websites of some other brands sold in New Zealand.
B Corp certifies a wide range of organisations that “meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability”. However, these standards are very weak when it comes to treatment of even directly-employed workers, and there are no requirements to eliminate worker abuse from their supply chain.
We have no reason to believe B Corp certified teas are reliably produced without child labour or forced labour and we do not recommend them. However, some of the Pukka tea range have Fair for Life or Fair Wild certification as well as B Corp certification: those will be slave free.
Dilmah tea markets itself as ethical tea, but has no independent certification. In general we wouldn’t support such a company, but in this case we do believe that their tea is reliably free of labour abuses and, indeed, looks after its workforce reasonably well.
Dilmah makes very concrete claims in regards to the treatment of their workers. They have a human rights policy that prevents child labour and forced labour, ensures workers receive a legal minimum wage. Suppliers are required to adhere to the same basic standards. Directly employed workers (which includes the vast majority of tea growers and pickers) receive a range of other benefits such as schools for their children, low interest housing loans, holiday pay, funeral allowances etc. Lastly, Dilmah returns 15% of pre-tax profits to growers, meaning the average Dilmah tea worker earns 25% more than the Sri Lankan average.
As you can see, unlike many companies that claim to be ‘ethical’, Dilmah makes very concrete claims, many of which are easily verifiable. In addition, they are a large company and are located in a country that is both easy and desirable for Western journalists to visit. Were these claims untrue, we would expect journalists to have reported this. We have looked for such reports many times over the last 5-10 years and have never found any - only numerous positive ones. The worst thing we were able to find was a story by the International Labour Organisation about the child of a Dilmah tea plantation worker. After a family tragedy the child had dropped out of school and the ILO became concerned they were at risk of child labour. There was no suggestion in the article that the child ever worked for Dilmah. Also, while it’s not directly relevant, we like the way they’ve donated free tea bags to all Hospice New Zealand facilities since 1997.
We are confident that Dilmah tea is free of both child labour and slave labour and that their staff are treated well. We also like that Dilmah tea is fully processed in Sri Lanka (right through to final packaging), as that maximises the number of good Dilmah jobs available to Sri Lankans. We recommend all Dilmah products.
The following brands all appear to be uncertified, but we checked their websites for any claims about the treatment of workers in supply chains: Healtheries, Bell, Choysa, Chanui, Arkadia, Higher Living, Ti Ora. Of these, we only found two claims that seemed relevant to worker treatment:
Our recommendations are listed below, first organised by brand, second by product type. Note that, if you are looking for tea for commercial or corporate contexts (e.g. tea in 2kg boxes, or single-serve sachets for your motel) these are listed here.
For some brands we are confident all their products are free of child and slave labour: these are listed first. Those where we are only confident of part of the range are listed second.
All products from all of these brands are free of child and slave labour and give workers safe working conditions. Those on the A list, however, go beyond that by offering other benefits such as decent pay, annual leave etc. If you are able to buy those, that’s even better :-)
This section is organised into black and breakfast teas, then green teas and lastly herbal and fruit teas.