Together with partners, producers, suppliers, women-led organizations, NGOs and communities, Twinings aims to respect, promote and realise the right of people we work with and those in our supply chain to a world of work free from Gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH).

GBVH is a serious violation of human rights and a life-threatening health and protection issue.

Although anyone – women, girls, men and boys – can fall victim to violence simply because of their sex or gender, women and girls are especially at risk. It is estimated that one in three women will experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime.

Alongside all the work we are currently doing on gender equality and women empowerment, we have now developed our Gender Based Violence and Harassment policy for suppliers. This policy is designed to support tea gardens that supply us to adequately prevent and respond to GBVH, mitigate its risks and ultimately protect women workers.

In addition to meeting local regulation and legislation related to GBVH as a minimum, we expect tea gardens to formalise their approach to the prevention of GBVH, and ensure a sustained effort towards eliminating GBVH, through for examples creating awareness on rights and acceptable behaviours, ensuring an effective channel for grievances, as well as increasing the number of women in decision making positions to ensure systemic change.

This policy is being rolled out to our sourcing countries, starting with gardens where we have already established gender programming within the supply chain and where the majority of the workforce are women. This policy is also accompanied by a toolkit to guide our suppliers in meeting these new requirements.

This policy will work alongside our multi-faceted approach to addressing sexual harassment and discrimination and promoting gender equitable behaviour in our tea supply chain.