Sugar and the horrific exploitation of womem [View all]

[Danmel]

A depressing and infuriating must read.

Young girls are pushed into illegal child marriages so they can work alongside their husbands cutting and gathering sugar cane. Instead of receiving wages, they work to pay off advances from their employers — an arrangement that requires them to pay a fee for the privilege of missing work, even to see a doctor.

An extreme yet common consequence of this financial entrapment is hysterectomies. Labor brokers loan money for the surgeries, even to resolve ailments as routine as heavy, painful periods. And the women — most of them uneducated — say they have little choice.

Hysterectomies keep them working,
undistracted by doctor visits or the hardship of menstruating in a field with no access to running water, toilets or shelter.


https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/24/world/europe/india-sugar-cane-fields-child-labor-hysterectomies.html?ugrp=u&unlocked_article_code=1.fE0.DMtt.YLHefmqSLDO9&smid=url-share