In India, in the Beed district, the main cane sugar production area, 36% of agricultural workers are without uterus after having undergone total ablation, often even at a young age, to find a job and be more productive.
Documenting the ordeal of the Indians employed in the sugar cane fields is a reportage by the broadcaster France Télévisions broadcast tomorrow evening in the ‘Envoyé Spécial’ program. Sugar cane is harvested every year for six months in the city of Beed, Maharashtra (central-west), a business that employs over one million workers of which half are women.
1 terrible Mukadam
Generally they are recruited by ‘mukadam’, or agents paid by plantation owners to bring entire families to work in the fields, already from the age of 10. The working conditions are extremely harsh: wake up at 3 am, more than 10 hours of work in the scorching sun and only one day of rest a month.
During the six months of the harvest they live in tents set up by the owners of the sugar factories, without running water or electricity. In the fields it is always the notorious ‘mukadam’ who control agricultural workers and their productivity. They are always the ones who suggest to girls and women to proceed with atotal hysterectomy, with ablation of the ovaries, to eliminate menstrual pain, problems related to childbirthpresenting the intervention as trivial.
Paying for your own downfall
The doctors in the region who perform the invasive operation argue that by doing so they avoid developing a tumor, in fact a much lower risk to a woman’s health than the consequences of a hysterectomy, especially if performed at a young age. “If they do not remove the uterus, it is a problem for us, they are less productive. And if they have cancer, they are no longer of any use,” a recruiter, Jyotiram Andhale, told ‘Envoyé Spécial’, stating that the cost of the operation is their responsibility and that during hospitalization and convalescence they are not paid.
“The mukadam yells at us if we don’t work hard enough. He beats us very hard, even when we are sick. He shouts at our husbands that we don’t work hard and that we have to pay back the salary” a woman told France Télévisions reporters while her husband is busy to deliver the freshly cut reeds to the factory.
The report entitled “Sugar sacrifices” collected the testimonies of female workers, of which more than one in three has been subjected to irreversible surgery, some as early as 20 years old. Hysterectomy causes very early menopause as it blocks the production of hormones and makes them sterile.
The risks and damages
At 30, those who underwent the surgery seem to be 50, with a prematurely aged face and body, but on the other hand no more menstrual pains, no children, and above all greater productivity and a guaranteed job. Often they have no choice but to give in to the pressure of the ‘mukadam’ to work and make ends meet with the family, paying the highest price on your body.
In the rest of India, as elsewhere in the world, this operation affects only 3% of women and in general is performed only on patients over 50 years of age. In addition to the damage, the insult: together with Brazil, India is the world’s largest producer of sugar, but it is also one of the countries with the lowest per capita consumption, so domestic demand is much lower than supply.
If all the excess sugar was sold on the Indian market, prices would collapse with serious damage to the entire supply chain. Thus the government pays huge subsidies to export millions of tons. To remedy the chronic sugar glut – 28 million tons were produced in 2019, with an excess of about 5 million – the lobby of private and state producers united in the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) is trying to persuade Indians to eat more sugar with web campaigns and various incentives.
Populous India is overall the largest consumer of sugar in the world, but on average each citizen uses 19 kilos per year compared to 23 in many other countries. The powerful producers exalt the properties of sugar and push us to “discover the sweetness in our lives”, in spite of the bitter fate of the women sacrificed in the fields of Maharashtra.