Lost Womanhood

It was incredibly sad to read this story about the abuse of female workers in the sugar can fields of India. I grew up in India in what seems a different time - things were far from great for the poor but forced hysterectomies were not common. There was no Pepsi and Coke so presumably the sky high demand for sugar and the abuse that comes with it had yet to come. Maybe the problem existed for other reasons and I had simply not known about it. 

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.

But the abuse of hysterectomies is not limited to India and the hapless sugar cane field workers. The control of women and their bodies is pervasive and universal.

Sterilization was used to uphold white supremacy and limit the reproductive futures of BIPOC communities, as well as people with physical and/or mental health challenges. In the early 20th century, more than 60,000 people were sterilized in 32 states based on the “science” of eugenics.

State-sanctioned sterilizations peaked in the 1930s and 1940s but continued throughout the 20th century. In the 1960s and 1970s, federal programs started funding non-consensual sterilizations, which ultimately affected more than 100,000 BIPOC women