In Kenya, women bear the brunt as mechanisation wipes out tea sector jobs
Workers pick tea leaves on a Unilever tea plantation in Kericho, Kenya.
(Alamy/Jake Lyell
)
(Alamy/Jake Lyell
)
On a cool Tuesday evening in Kapkugerwet village in Kenya’s Kericho County, Lucy Cheres puts a tea basket on her hunched back and heads out to the small tea farm in front of her house. There, she starts plucking tea leaves for the next day’s sale. It is an art she has perfected after 15 years of working as a casual labourer at a nearby tea plantation owned by the British-Dutch consumer goods conglomerate Unilever. But in 2015, Cheres was among the thousands of workers who lost their jobs after the company introduced tea picking machines.
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