Kericho County has offered free counselling and treatment of the sexual abuse victims at multinational tea estate companies at the Kericho County Referral Hospital before resuming their duties.

This follows a recent expose by the BBC where dozens of women are subjected to sexual abuse to keep their low-income jobs at British-owned tea farms in Kericho.

Women who worked on the tea fields owned by Unilever and James Finlay described how their managers took advantage of them sexually to get promotions.

Kericho County leaders have raised concern over the recent exposé at the multinational tea estate companies in which senior officials were implicated of seeking sexual favours from desperate job seekers.

PHOTO | COURTESY: KNA

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The leaders have called out the alleged sexual abuse in which casual labourers were coerced to offer sex to their superiors to get employment favours

While reacting to the expose, the governor of Kericho County, Dr Eric Mutai, has given police officers a 48-hour deadline to apprehend the criminals who are clearly revealed in the documentary, some of whom are alleged to have infected the temporary labourers with fatal diseases.

“We are condemning this act with the strongest terms possible and the culprits must be brought to book immediately,” said Dr Mutai

On her part, Kericho County Woman Rep Beatrice Kemei has demanded that the Multinational tea companies initiate legal action against the mentioned perpetrators and further called on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to probe the matter.

“I wish to warn proprietors doing business within our county that they must only employ our people but also respect their human rights. Women must be respected in their places of work” she stated.

In response to this, the James Finlay company in a statement has confirmed that the two individuals named in the documentary have been suspended and barred from the company’s site and passed information to the police.

The Kericho-based tea plantations owned by Unilever and James Finlay supply to some of the UK’s most popular brands, including PG Tips, Lipton, and Sainsbury’s Red Label.