A Torture-not From Husband Or Mil

Rihana · Apr 15, 2019

Amulet said: ↑

ILforum members must give up sugar, jaggery, and foods/sweets made of these.
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yellowmango said: ↑

Lastly...what is the need for the unnecessary heading ?
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An unnecessary irritant introduced into a serious topic that takes away from the subject ....just like the previous one.
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Yes. The unnecessary irritant takes away from the subject without providing any positive help to the discussion.

jayasala42 · Apr 15, 2019

sokanasanah said: ↑

The talent for exploiting fellow human beings never fails to amaze me! I had not heard of this. Maharashtra tends to be somewhat sane usually, but whoa this is weird - how much could the added savings/profits really amount to?

I found a few articles, all anecdotal, no stats.
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Dear Sir,Thank you for the response.Sometimes, even saner people become insane .From what I hear from other sources is that there is objection from the labour class from introducing cutting machinery which will deprive them of their jobs.

jayasala 42

joylokhi · Apr 15, 2019

jayasala42 said: ↑

Cane-cutting contractors are unwilling to hire women who menstruate, so hysterectomies have become the norm

We will hardly find women with wombs in these villages. 'These are villages of womb-less women ' report the news papers.

The drought affected Beed district of Maharashtra is one such place.Women shed tears soon on hearing any discussion about this topic.

Women in Vanjarwadi,another village, where 50 per cent of the women have had hysterectomies, say that it is the “norm” in villages to remove the uterus after having two or three children.

Most of the women are cane cutters and migrate to the sugar belt of western Maharashtra during the cane cutting season; with the drought intensifying, the number of migrants multiplies.

The contractor gets it confirmed that women have no wombs( uterus) before giving job to them.
October to March is the cane cutting season and people in thousands and even in lakhs ,migrate to work during the period.

Contractors draw up contracts with the husband and wife counted as one unit. Cane cutting is a rigorous process and if the husband or wife takes a break for a day, they have to pay a fine of Rs500 per day to the contractor for every break.

Menstrual periods hinder work and attract fines. The answer, is to go in for a hysterectomy so the women no longer have them.

After a hysterectomy, there is no chance of menstrual periods. So, there is no question of taking a break during cane cutting. "We cannot afford to lose even a rupee,” lament the workers.

The earnings during this period, have to be kept throughout the year.

Contractors have a target to complete in a limited timeframe and hence they don’t want women who would have periods during cane cutting.

The contractors say that they don't force women to undergo hysterectomy , but they keep the contract conditions so rigid that the women have no alternative. It seems to appear that the decision for the surgery has been taken by women themselves.

In many cases it is learnt that contractors initially bear the expenses for the surgery and later recover from the wages.

In the cane cutter community, men and women earn around Rs 2000 ( max) per day depending the kilograms of cane they cut,menstruation is considered a bane and the surgery is done even for people in their late 20s.This has a serious impact on the health of the women as they develop a hormonal imbalance, mental health issues,dry vaginal issues and other related disorders such as gaining weight inspite of very hard physical work.Possibility of cervical cancer cannot be rules out.

In the families somehow they try to justify this surgery , since they can't take even a day's break and they cannot get work anywhere later in the year.There is no rest and women having periods is an additional problem. They make the hay while the sun shines.But with the fear of probable illnesses haunting their mind, "How long will the sun shine"?- is a thousand dollar question.

Does the problem end here? A greater problem is in the anvil.

The life of a cane cutter woman is hellish. There is repeated sexual exploitation of women by contractors and their men.This becomes all the more possible or justifiable ,since pregnancy and child bearing are totally ruled out. Who cares if the women become seriously ill leading to terminal illness even before reaching 40?
During the season Cane cutters have to live in cane fields or near sugar mills in a tent. There are no bathrooms and toilets.

Many women in villages in this parched landscape said private medical practitioners prescribe a hysterectomy surgery even if they complain of normal abdominal pain or a white discharge.

Is there any end to woes of these women?We talk of torture by husbands and MIL very often. But this suffering seems to have been self imposed for bread winning.Where is the escape route?

jayasala 42
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Shocking! to say the least. This is the first time I am hearing of such an issue. Women empowerment - seems too long a route when we hear of such cases. Very sad. Cannot think of a solution for this - other than education and being able to stand on ones feet. This too, is only possible where the family is able to enable all this in the early years.

sokanasanah · Apr 15, 2019

jayasala42 said: ↑

... there is objection from the labour class from introducing cutting machinery which will deprive them of their jobs.
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Yes, I expect so. Be rendered superfluous by machines, suffer starvation, or endure surgery. What a lottery life is.

nakshatra1 · Apr 16, 2019

jayasala42 said: ↑

Madam Nakshatra, Thank you for your response.When we are particular in sharing an information, we don't attach much importance to titles.Just because they have self imposed torture just to make both ends meet, it has no where been stated that they should not mind about the normal tortures.These are all very serious issues and I think that relevance to title and the content, literary style or any intention of the snippet writer etc need not be probed, as I am neither a literary stalwart nor a veteran in writing snippets.I have read more than 10,000 snippets from this forum for the past five years.There seems to be no stipulated norm or literary standard prescribed for the same.As I felt very sad for the plight of women,I just shared,That is all.
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I feel you have good literary skills and I enjoy reading most of your articles . I agree with you these are very serious issues. If we write random things without any purpose in the context of serious matters , surely there will be reaction from readers we should be ready to accept the criticism /analysis . Anyway I am thankful to you for posting about serious issues and look forward to read more from you .

jayasala42 · Apr 16, 2019

nakshatra1 said: ↑

I feel you have good literary skills and I enjoy reading most of your articles . I agree with you these are very serious issues. If we write random things without any purpose in the context of serious matters , surely there will be reaction from readers we should be ready to accept the criticism /analysis . Anyway I am thankful to you for posting about serious issues and look forward to read more from you .
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Criticism is the constructive part of writing and responding.Thank you for your views.
Jayasala 42