In India, in the Beed district, the main sugar cane growing area, 36% of farm workers are uterine after undergoing total ablation, often at a young age to find employment and be more productive. The ordeal of the Indians working in the sugar cane fields is documented in a report by France Télévisions that will be broadcast tomorrow evening on the program “Envoyé Spécial”.
Sugar cane is harvested for six months each year in the city of Beed, Maharashtra (Central West), a company that employs over a million workers, half of whom are women. Generally, they are recruited by “Mukadam” or agents paid by plantation owners to bring entire families to field work from as young as 10 years old. The working conditions are extremely harsh: getting up at 3am, working over 10 hours in the scorching sun and only one rest day a month. During the six months of harvest, they live in tents set up by the sugar mill owners, without running water or electricity. In the fields it is always the notorious “Mukadam” who control the farm workers and their productivity.
They are always the ones who suggest girls and women to perform a total hysterectomy with ovarian ablation to eliminate menstrual pain and childbirth related problems, and portray the operation as trivial. The doctors in the region who perform the invasive operation perform argue that by doing so they avoid developing a tumor, which in fact poses a much lower risk to the woman’s health than the consequences of a hysterectomy, especially when performed at a young age.
“If they don’t remove the womb, that’s a problem for us, they’re less productive. And when they have cancer, they are no longer useful,” a recruiter, Jyotiram Andhale, told Envoyé Spécial, specifying that the cost of the operation is their responsibility and will not be paid during the hospitalization and convalescence . Mukadam yells at us if we don’t work hard enough. He beats us very hard even when we are sick. He yells at our husbands that we don’t have to work hard and pay back the salary,” a woman told reporters from France Te’le’visions while the husband is busy delivering freshly cut reeds to the factory.
The report, titled “Sugar Victims,” collected the testimonies of female workers, more than one in three of whom have undergone irreversible surgery, some as early as 20 years of age. Hysterectomy causes very early menopause because it blocks the production of hormones and makes you sterile. At 30, the surgeons appear to be 50, with a prematurely aged face and body, but no more menstrual pains, no children, and most importantly, higher productivity and a guaranteed job. They often have no choice but to succumb to pressure from the “Mukadams” to work and make ends meet with their families by paying the ultimate price for their bodies.
In the rest of India, as elsewhere in the world, this surgery affects only 3% of women and is generally only performed on patients over the age of 50. In addition to the damage, there is also an insult: India is the world’s largest sugar producer alongside Brazil, but it is also one of the countries with the lowest per capita consumption, so domestic demand is significantly lower than supply. If all the excess sugar were sold in the Indian market, prices would plummet and seriously damage the entire supply chain. So the government pays huge subsidies for exporting millions of tons.
To remedy the chronic sugar glut – 28 million tons were produced in 2019, with a surplus of around 5 million – the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) lobby of private and state producers is trying to get Indians to eat more sugar through web campaigns and various incentives. Populous India is the world’s largest consumer of sugar, but on average each citizen consumes 19 kilos a year compared to 23 in many other countries. Powerful producers extol the properties of sugar and urge us to “discover the sweetness in our lives” despite the bitter fate of the women sacrificed in the fields of Maharashtra.