Actress calls for worker rights

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Oscar-winning British actress Emma Thompson has called on Tesco to ensure its suppliers of fruit in South Africa adhere to laws on working conditions.

Ms Thompson, who was in the country with the charity Action Aid, visited one of the farms that provides fruit to the UK's biggest retailer.

She told the BBC workers faced poor conditions and were paid 38p an hour.

Tesco, the largest importer of South African fruit in the EU, said it was committed to improving the situation.

'Trapped'

In an interview on BBC Radio 4's You and Yours programme, Ms Thomson said she had met women working on a farm near Stellenbosch, on the Western Cape, where grapes were harvested.

"They work in a big shed, and they stand for 11 hours. There's a little break but there's nowhere to sit," she said.

"They're paid 38p an hour, are casual labourers and unfortunately come back year after year for this labour. They're trapped in this cycle of poverty by this contract between worker and farmer."

The star of Sense and Sensibility visited the farm with a group called Women on Farms, which tries to improve the conditions for women working in the region.

"There is fantastic constitutional legislation to protect workers like these but it's not put into practice on the ground," she said.

'No boycott'

Customers could not ignore how the food on shelves in the UK was produced, the actress said and urged supermarkets to focus on the conditions people were working under.

"What Tesco could be doing very usefully is to make sure all the farms that they import from adhere to a very strict set of regulations.

"This is not a call for any kind of boycott but is a wake-up call to be responsible about the people that you employ.

"Unfortunately they work in a very hidden environment. Nobody knows about those conditions, and 38p an hour is not enough.

"Tesco made £2bn in profits last year and they made those profits partly on the backs of these women."

'Responsibility'

Tesco said it understood it had a responsibility and that it was fully engaged with suppliers, NGOs and charities to improve things.

Spokesman Trevor Datsun told the programme that ensuring laws were enforced was an industry-wide problem.

"We believe that Tesco is not the problem here, it's part of the solution," he said. "While we don't employ anyone directly, we do know we can help to... improve standards of these women and their families."

Trading and investing in South Africa helped the economy to grow, he added.