Forgotten on Women’s Day: Bongaigaon's tea garden workers struggle for basic rights
With meagre wage, insufficient nourishment, inadequate medical facilities, & forced to defecate in the open, women felt no vibe on March 8;
Woman tea garden workers in Bongaigaon often work for meagre wages, have insufficient food, and face other problems (AT Photo)
Bongaigaon, March 9: The celebration of International Women's Day does not make any sense for the woman workers of a tea garden in Bongaigaon.
The Birjhora Tea Estate is located just beside the Bongaigaon town. It has around 800 female work-force of which only 130 are permanent workers while the rest are temporary labourers.
Each permanent woman worker gets Rs 250 as her daily wage against working hour 7 am to 4.30 pm, 3-kg rice for five-day full work, and some tea leaves. Whereas, a temporary woman labourer gets only the daily wage of Rs 250 and nothing from the tea estate authority.
"We are the main work-force of tea gardens but we have been deprived of rightful wages," lamented a woman labourer of the tea estate.
The woman workers carry small quantities of cooked rice and chutney as their meal to have it during recess from works in the garden. They cannot afford vegetables with their meagre wage. Hence, most of the women in the tea estate are anaemic and children are underweight which is a symptom of malnourishment, a health-care worker of the tea estate said.
"Earlier we got atta (wheat flour) as free ration from the tea garden authority. By making chapatis out of it, we can eat them either with tea or onion. But to eat cooked rice, we need either pulses or vegetables which we cannot afford," a poor woman worker of the tea estate expressed her pain.
The hospital in the tea estate is running without any doctor. Workers get only common medicines from it. Surgical and delivery cases are sent to the Bongaigaon Civil Hospital which is five km from the tea estate.
Most of the woman labourers are forced to defecate in the open as they have no proper toilets in their houses. Because of this, they suffer from various health issues.
Skin infection among the children and foot disease among the woman labourers are common health issues in this tea garden, a medical staff of the hospital said.
Regarding the celebration of International Women's Day, some woman labourers said that this event neither helps address their issues nor empowers them to fight for their rights in actual sense. Invited guests and woman leaders only deliver lectures but they don't come forward to address our issues, the women workers added.
- By Correspondent
