This International Women’s Day (IWD), ETP is reconfirming our commitment to driving forward tangible action for women and girls across tea supply chains.
The theme for IWD 2026, “Rights. Justice. Action. for ALL Women and Girls”, resonates strongly with our work to advance and uphold the rights of women and girls across tea supply chains. From strengthening gender committees within the tea sector in Kenya, Rwanda and Indonesia through the Our Tea Our Voice (OTOV) programme, to supporting the development of a new gender strategy for a tea producer company in Sri Lanka through our Women in Leadership programme, ETP works in partnership with tea-growing communities, tea producers, our members and other key stakeholders to turn commitments on gender equality and social inclusion into practical, sustained action.
Persistent barriers facing women in tea
This year has also been declared the International Year of the Woman Farmer by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), recognising the vital role women farmers play in global food security, rural livelihoods, and climate resilience. In tea supply chains, women are the backbone of the tea industry, central to the production, quality, and long-term sustainability of tea. In Sri Lanka, for example, women make up around 65% of the total tea workforce, yet are concentrated in the lowest-paid tea harvesting roles, a pattern reflected across many tea-growing regions.
Despite their central role in tea production, women’s human rights, safety and leadership opportunities remain unevenly realised across tea-growing communities. Women workers and farmers continue to face structural barriers, including:
- Deeply embedded social norms that limit women’s agency, mobility and decision-making power.
- Disproportionate unpaid care and domestic work responsibilities, reducing time available for paid work, training and community leadership roles.
- Unequal access to land, finance, inputs, training and market opportunities, which restrict women’s productivity and incomes.
- Wage inequality and overrepresentation in precarious forms of employment, such as informal or daily wage work, which reduce economic security and increase risks of exploitation, including sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (SEAH).
These interconnected barriers reinforce one another, limiting women’s economic independence, voice and ability to claim their rights within their households, workplaces and communities.
For all women and girls
The challenges that women face in tea are not experienced uniformly. A young migrant worker engaged in seasonal work, an older smallholder farmer, or a woman with a disability may face very different risks, constraints and opportunities. Gender inequality intersects with poverty, age, ethnicity, disability, and migration status, shaping who is most vulnerable to human rights violations, who has access to resources, and who can participate in leadership and decision-making opportunities.
Achieving rights and justice for all women and girls requires interventions that reflect these realities. Designing programmes and due diligence processes that are inclusive and responsive to intersecting vulnerabilities is not only more equitable, it is also more effective.
To strengthen this understanding across the sector, ETP is launching a new series of resources, with upcoming factsheets focusing on disability inclusion; children, youth and ageing populations; and migrant workers and ethnic diversity in tea-growing communities. The series aims to support stakeholders in recognising how overlapping inequalities within tea-growing communities shape risks and opportunities, and how interventions can be adapted to address diverse risks and support equitable outcomes.
What this means for ETP’s members
For tea brands, packers and retailers navigating emerging Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD) requirements, advancing gender equality and social inclusion is not a peripheral consideration – it is central to responsible sourcing.
Given the highly gendered nature of tea supply chains, due diligence must be gender-responsive and inclusive. This means identifying gender-specific and intersecting risks, such as risks of SEAH, putting in place strategies to prevent and mitigate harm, and ensuring safe, accessible and trusted pathways to remedy.
Without recognising that women and girls face different and overlapping barriers, the most vulnerable may remain invisible in risk assessments, mitigation strategies and grievance mechanisms, limiting the effectiveness of HREDD processes.
ETP’s work driving forward tangible action
Advancing gender equality and social inclusion, with an explicit focus on those most marginalised, is integral to building a thriving, socially just, and environmentally sustainable tea sector.
Through our programmes, our members and partners are investing in tangible, long-term change for women and girls.
Examples from our current programmes include:
- Increasing the participation and voice of women and marginalised groups in tea estates through inclusive worker-management structures in the Plantation Community Empowerment Programme (PCEP) in Assam, India.
- Supporting women farmers’ access to agricultural and leadership training and diversified, climate-resilient livelihoods through the Mthunzi programme in Malawi.
- Engaging men and boys as allies in promoting equality, inclusion and respectful workplaces, including by training male staff and senior leadership in the Sri Lanka Women in Leadership programme to foster equitable workplaces for all.
- Shifting attitudes towards inclusive leadership in Kenya, Rwanda and Indonesia through the Our Tea Our Voice programme, resulting in both women and men actively promoting the inclusion of women, youth, and people with disabilities within community and tea sector leadership forums.
Alongside designing and delivering high-quality, community-based programmes, ETP supports our members by:
- Providing technical guidance on responsible business practices, including gender-responsive and inclusive HREDD.
- Developing practical resources, including our forthcoming factsheet series, to guide stakeholders in addressing overlapping inequalities and risks.
- Convening sector-wide learning and dialogues on emerging issues, fostering shared understanding and solutions across the tea sector.
From commitment to transformative action
Achieving rights and justice for all women and girls in tea cannot be achieved by one organisation alone. Businesses, governments, civil society, and communities all play a role in shifting power dynamics, strengthening accountability, and transforming the social norms that perpetuate inequality.
This International Women’s Day, ETP reaffirms its commitment to working with tea-growing communities, tea producers and our members to deliver rights and justice for all women and girls.
When women in tea thrive, as workers, farmers and leaders in all their diversity, supply chains become more resilient, communities grow stronger, and systemic change accelerates across the tea sector.
#ForAllWomenAndGirls
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