Unilever supports 1,000 smallholder farmers in Tanzania

Unilever Tea has five plantations and three factories in the Mufindi district of Iringa region in Tanzania. The tea produced here is highly acclaimed for its taste and quality. It has also created decent jobs for local communities, including women, and fostered sustainable development.

Unilever is one of the largest private-sector employers in Iringa and Njombe regions, providing jobs for more than 6,000 people. Nearly half of its managers include locally recruited women.

“Women are a key resource that drives tea production in all the estates,” says factory manager Rebeca Mamuya.

The majority of women in these regions are hard-working and resilient smallholder farmers who toil the fields before the break of dawn, tending to tea or maize crops. Among them is Edina Mbinda, who lives in Mninga village and has been producing and selling tea to Unilever.

However, a set of independent assessments conducted of the communities in Mufindi and Njombe between 2013 and 2019 revealed that women are particularly vulnerable to physical, sexual and other forms of violence, and lacked confidence and say in household decision-making. The assessments spurred Unilever to establish a programme in 2014 to ensure that female staff are safe—both at home and as they travel to and from work.

Mamuya says although Unilever established the programme in 2014 and put in place the ‘No Sexual Harassment’ and ‘Child Protection’ policies, some of the harmful behaviours and attitudes were still affecting the staff.

“This is why we need robust awareness-raising activities to educate both Unilever workers and the communities around us. That way, we can holistically tackle violence against women and girls and ensure they are safe everywhere,” says Mamuya.

Faisal Pervez Ansari, Unilever’s General Manager for Kabwele Factory in Mufindi, also emphasized the need for partnerships to strengthen Unilever’s actions against gender-based violence, both in and out of the workplace.“There is no finish line for improvement. We decided to partner with UN Women to further strengthen our efforts.”

The UN Women and Unilever Tea Tanzania partnership was launched in December 2019 in Mufindi to run a series of gender-based violence training sessions and awareness-raising activities targeting the workers and their families. It aims to transform perceptions and attitudes so that the existing policies on sexual harassment and child protection can be meaningfully implemented.

This year, the partnership will strengthen Unilever’s Women Safety Initiative, which is paying closer attention to prevention and response to sexual harassment and other forms of gender-based violence in all Unilever tea estates and factories.