THIRST is proud to announce the publication of Analysis of the Root Causes of Human Rights Breaches, the second in our series of reports on Human Rights in the Tea Sector – The Big Picture.
The first report, published in 2022 was Part 1: Literature Review, laying out the human rights, standards, conventions, laws and policies designed to protect the human rights of tea workers and farmers around the world. It then reviewed reports of the reality of their living and working conditions. We identified a siginificant gap between these human rights in principle and in practice.
Part 2: Analysis of the root causes of human rights breaches explores the reasons for this gap. It reveals some important new perspectives on known root causes such as low prices. It also offers brand new insights on how the multiple root causes interlink, the various value chain levels at which they occur, and what else could be driving and sustaining low incomes and poor working conditions for many of the world’s tea workers and farmers.
This report is based on the perspectives of almost two hundred tea industry stakeholders across many countries – from tea pluckers to CEOs of tea companies, from shop stewards to supermarkets – to understand the root causes of the gap between the plethora of human rights in principle (standards, conventions, laws, codes of conduct etc) and in practice.
These findings will form the basis for our in-person multistakeholder roundtables in 2024, at which industry stakeholders and civil society will work together to make practical plans for a fairer, more sustainable and thriving tea industry.
