Kenyan tea workers claim Unilever failed to protect them from deadly violence

Hundreds of workers caught up in a deadly attack on a Unilever tea plantation in Kenya have lodged a formal complaint against the company with the United Nations, alleging the British-Dutch firm failed to act on warnings of violence.

The 218 complainants, who include the families of seven employees killed during the attack and 56 female staff who were raped, also claim Unilever have failed to provide adequate support for victims.

The multinational, which owns tea brands PG Tips, Liptons, T2 and Tazo, is accused “hiding behind its vast corporate structure” to shield itself from liability in legal action brought over the December 2007 ethnic violence at the plantation in Kericho, western Kenya.

Employees at the vast plantation, which has a residential population of more than 100,000, were chased, attacked and raped by attackers armed who invaded the site armed with clubs and machetes. The violence came in the wake of a closely fought and disputed general election which plunged the country into protest and bloodshed.

Some plantation workers had previously received threats and warned their managers at Unilever they feared being targeted during unrest as they were not indigenous to the area. They allege the company failed to properly protect them and staff were left to fend for themselves when violence broke out.

But in British judges rejected a civil claim brought in 2015 on behalf on the 218 workers and families. The Court of Appeal ruled the scale out the violence was “not foreseeable” and it would be not be “fair, just and reasonable” to expect Unilever to “act as a surrogate police force to maintain law and order”.

After exhausting all legal avenues, the claimants’ lawyers at London-based firm Leigh Day have now taken the fight to the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.

The complaint supported by British and Kenyan human rights groups alleges Unilever “placed the victims in a position of significant risk of attack on their plantation and yet has refused to provide adequate redress or assistance to the victims,” some of whom “still suffer from physical and psychiatric injuries”.

It adds the firm “failed to provide appropriate assistance to the victims and instead unilaterally stopped their wages for a six-month period”.

Unilever also “insisted that it could not be held legally responsible for any failings of their Kenyan subsidiary, while knowing that these claims could not be brought in Kenya” due to the risk of further violence of the claimants identities’ became public, the complaint states.

The complaint argues that each allegation constitutes a serious breach of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Daniel Leader, a partner in Leigh Day specialising in international human rights, said the plantation workers were “put in a position of serious risk by Unilever and in response to these appalling attacks the victims claim that the company point blank refused to provide adequate remediation”.

“This is a serious breach of international human rights standards and it is hoped that this complaint will force Unilever to confront this reality and result in meaningful remedy for the victims,” he added.

Chris Esdaile, legal adviser at the human rights organisation Redress, said: “The victims of sexual violence and other abuses in this case should receive some kind of reparation, which responds to the actual harm suffered by the victims, and promotes their healing as a central objective. Unilever needs to undertake a journey with the victims to address the trauma and violence which they have suffered.”

A Unilever spokesperson told The Independent accusations of negligence were “unfounded” and the company’s Kenyan subsidiary had “provided significant support to employees and their families”.

The company said it had “provided significant support to those employees impacted”, including counselling and the replacement of possessions looted by attackers.

The spokesperson added: “2007/2008 was a terrible time for Kenya and the post-election violence was truly tragic.

“Since then, the English Supreme Court concluded its review of all the evidence on the facts of the allegations and supported earlier decisions that Unilever can’t be held responsible for what happened, and that the scale and severity of the violence, which occurred across the country, was simply not foreseeable.”