In brief
The investigation reveals the hardships faced by sugar cane workers in Maharashtra, including debt bondage, child labor, and forced hysterectomies, and questions the government's role in these ongoing crises.
Debt bondage, child labor, and coerced hysterectomies are rampant among sugar cane cutters in Maharashtra, India. When investigating these abuses, the transparency with which they occurred was shocking. In Beed, a village riddled with poverty, every individual we spoke with either experienced or witnessed these violations. International companies, like Coca-Cola, continually sourced sugar from this region despite these astonishing conditions, and local sugar mills still received endorsements, further enabling these injustices. Workers, feeling forsaken by their government, struggle to provide for their families. Women showed us their scars from hysterectomies, surgeries undertaken because taking time off for regular health care was not an option. Despite the existence of laws against debt bondage and child labor, and regulations like minimum wage, the governmental response has been a stark absence.
