India is the world’s second-largest sugar producer, and Maharashtra is India’s top sugar producing state. According to Reuters, 500,000 rural poor migrate to Beed, Solapur, Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara districts every year, to cut sugarcane.

Reuters

Among these are women who in a desperate bid to avoid sexual abuse from middlemen and landlords are forced to have their ovaries removed.

A new report by Hindu Business Line has revealed this harsh reality in the cane-cutting industry. According to the report, for women in Vanjarwadi village of Beed, it has become a norm to undergo hysterectomy for work.

Reuters

The daily states that half the women in the district don't have a womb. After giving birth to two or three children, they voluntarily get their uterus removed in order to be able to find work.

Escaping sexual abuse is not the only reason they are forced to alter the natural form. Middlemen who enslave them say that menstruation slows them down, and demand that they get their ovaries removed so that they can work non-stop for six months.

Contractors give them an advance for the hysterectomy and then the money is recovered from their wages, states the report.

FYI, hysterectomy is only recommended as a treatment method for problems such as fibroids, cancers, endometriosis etc. Many of these women might not have any such problems, but are forced to undergo it just to be able to find work and earn a living.

Reuters

According to Reuters, the procedure costs about 35,000 rupees that push most of these poor families into deep debt.

The report also reveals that women as young as 25 are undergoing the surgery and many don't mind doing hard manual labour soon after the procedure.

This practice screams sexual discrimination and period shaming. Efforts by activists to stop this regressive practice is more often than not thwarted by factories owned by wealthy politicians.

It is painful and shameful that women have to undergo a medical procedure to alter their natural form to make ends meet. This not only stems from deep-seated prejudices against women, it is also rooted in ignorance and lack of education on both sides of the table.