Open Access Research Article
Human Right Violation Of Women Sugarcane Workers In Maharashtra (By-AKSHAT UNIYAL)
Published Paper
Article Details
Human
Right Violation Of Women Sugarcane Workers In Maharashtra
Authored
By-Akshat Uniyal
Abstract
“Women’s
sexual and reproductive health is
related to multiple human rights, including the right to life, the right to be
free from torture, the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to
education, and the prohibition of discrimination. Forced sterilization without
women’s prior consent is also a violation of women’s basic human rights”. This paper reviews the exploitation of uneducated women
working as bonded laborers in the district of Beed in Maharashtra and violation
of basic Human rights relating to reproduction and sexual health
Keywords: Human Rights, Women’s
Reproductive Rights
Introduction
According
to the United Nations Human Rights it is provided that “Women’s sexual and reproductive health is related to multiple
human rights, including the right to life, the right to be free from torture,
the right to health, the right to privacy, the right to education, and the
prohibition of discrimination. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (CESCR) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) have both indicated that women’s right to health includes their
sexual and reproductive health”. It further states that “Forced sterilization
without women’s prior consent” is also violation of women’s basic human rights.
In the Fourth conference on women (Beijing
Declaration and Platform for Action) it was stated in regards to women’s
Reproductive right that “the human rights of women include their right to have
control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their
sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion,
discrimination, and violence”[1].
In the recent year several “U.N. human rights experts and
bodies have
raised concerns to the Indian government about human rights violations arising
from the reproductive right issue as a result of standard female sterilization, these experts and bodies have called for India to
address these violations, as well as disparities in access to reproductive
health care. Courts in India have an important role to play in ensuring women's
reproductive rights as guaranteed by their constitutional and human rights”.
The Apex court of India along with various other courts have also taken various
important steps in recognizing that “Denial of reproductive rights is a violation
of women's fundamental and human rights [2]”.
Further developments have also taken place in women’s reproductive rights, the
Apex court has also stated that “reproductive
autonomy is a dimension of personal liberty as guaranteed under Article 21. It
is important to recognize that reproductive choices can be exercised to
procreate as well as to abstain from procreating. The crucial consideration is
that a woman's right to privacy, dignity, and bodily integrity should be
respected. This means that there should be no restriction whatsoever on the
exercise of reproductive choices such, Furthermore, women are also free to
choose birth-control methods such as undergoing sterilization procedures [3]” The Puttaswamy Judgment another
important judgement bearing on the reproductive right of women where it was
stated that “It is a constitutional and
basic human right of every woman to have and make reproductive choices, as a
part of personal liberty under Article
21 of the Indian Constitution.”
Now that we
have established that reproductive choices are a basic human right we will be
looking at how the Sugarcane worker women of Beed district in Maharashtra have
been deprived of this Human right by forcing them to undergo Hysterectomy
without providing proper knowledge about the procedure, its effect and how they
are forced to work in a poor working conditions which leads to various
complications after the surgery.
Research
Methodology
The Research Methodology used in this paper is Critical
Analysis of Human Right Violation of Women sugarcane workers in
Maharashtra. The data used in this paper has been collected from various
sources such as Articles, Statues, Judgements, and Books.
Review
Of Literature
“A
slaughter House for wombs and Human Right Violation of Uneducated Women in
Maharashtra”
“I believe that truth is the
most powerful tool that we possess against victimization, exploitation and
fear” with this quote I would like to begin my topic that is about the
inhumane, vicious, and unethical practices against those who are financially
backward, who possess little to no knowledge, have no idea about their rights
and does not know where to go to find restitution. Making them voiceless
against the discrimination and exploitation that they face. It saddens me to
read about one of such cases that has recently gained much deserved national
media coverage, the event brings light to the unprecedented growth of
Hysterectomy in Beed city that is located in the central region of Maharashtra[4]
with a population of 1.47 Lakh. “This issue was raised in the State Assembly by
legislator Dr. Neelam Gorhe” who is a renowned Indian politician and deputy
leader of Shiv Sena from Maharashtra. Cabinet minister of PWD, Public health
and Family Welfare in the government of Maharashtra Eknath Shinde confirmed
that there had been 4,605 Hysterectomy in the district of Beed in three years,
the numbers were later corrected to 4,542.[5]
Hysterectomy is a surgical
process to remove a women’s uterus[6].
There are diverse reasons for a woman to have a hysterectomy some of which may
be “uterine fibroids that cause pain, bleeding, or other problems, uterine
prolapse which is sliding of the uterus from its normal position into the
vaginal cavity, cancer of the uterus, cervix, or ovaries” and many such
reasons. Hysterectomy is viewed as the last resort for noncancerous reasons,
other treatments such as medication are adopted as a remedy and only if it
brings no success, hysterectomy is considered. This is the ethical and
reasonable approach to such problems. After the surgery the person sometimes
goes thru several experiences that includes a host of emotions, also one of the
direct consequences of hysterectomy is that it leaves women unable to conceive,
this loss can have a profound impact on those who desired to have children. Up
until now we have talked about and observed that hysterectomy is a very serious
and life-changing decision,
making it a very critical
decision for a woman, therefore it is considered as an ‘elective surgery’. It
is also said that after the surgery the patient needs to rest for at least
three months with proper Nutrition to recover properly from the surgery.
However, this is not the
case in Maharashtra where it is estimated that around 200 hysterectomies are
being practiced in numerous private hospitals per month. This is because of the
unethical practices of private doctors,
and also because of the degraded working environment provided by the employer
and absurd, unlawful, and informal rules of employment. As the Beed district of
Maharashtra gets affected by drought majority of these women along with their
husbands temporarily migrates to western Maharashtra during the cane-cutting
season to work as laborers for harvesting and with the increasing drought the
number of migrants also keeps on increasing. The contractors (Mukadam) often
find different ways to exploit these uneducated workforces and deprive them of
their basic Human Rights , they give advance payments to couples and treat them
as bonded laborers, they are made to work for 16-18 hours a day and have a
target of 1.5 tons of sugarcane per day and they cannot go beneath 1 ton per
day, the pay rate is 200 Rs per ton, they do not provide a clean place for them
to stay, lack of clean water and healthy food as stated by many laborers. They
don’t even provide any day off for women during the Menstrual period or
pregnancy if a woman takes a day off because of a menstrual period the
contractor terms such breaks as an ‘excuse to not work’ and are fined 1000 Rs
per day. As a result of which these helpless women develop various infections
in the genital area that in turn leads to various problem such as vaginal
discharge, for the most part, they continue to work even with severe pain in
the abdominal but after a while when the pain becomes irresistible they
consider going to the hospital for a remedy. This is where the unethical
practice on behalf of the doctors comes into play, they also exploit these
women by creating a stigma in their subconscious mind that hysterectomy is the
only solution to this problem and if they decide otherwise then cancer is
inevitable, out of the fear they take loans from relatives or the contractors
and undergo the surgery. Now let’s put numbers into play to understand the
motive behind such practices by the private hospitals, if on an average the
cost of hysterectomy is considered to be 20,000 Rs then in three years the
private hospitals of Beed alone made around 9 crores 84 lakhs. This is how and
‘elective surgery’ is converted into a ‘Forced surgery’. Even for minor cases
that could be treated with medications, that are noncancerous in nature
hysterectomy is conducted. “Deepak Thorat a
social worker in the field
of health in Beed also criticize the practices of private doctors he also
mentioned that if a woman comes to a government hospital with a problem related
to her uterus, first her blood is checked. The blood report comes in 8 days and
only if the report indicates it, she’s told to get a hysterectomy” but on the
contrary “if the woman visits a private hospital, they look for opportunities
to perform hysterectomy”. Now that the surgery is dealt with many women have
reported various problems such as back pain, neck and leg pain. One explanation
to this problem could be that it happens because after the surgery the women
require rest for at least three months and they are informed that they should
avoid heavy work, get their hemoglobin and blood pressure checked and eat
nutritious food but due to poverty and pressure they are not able to do these
things.
Although there are several
laws in place to protect the rights of laborers and provide them with good
working conditions but these laws are only being enforced in the organized
sectors and the unorganized sectors remain at the mercy of contractors. The Plantation Labor Act, 1951 “It is an act
to provide for the welfare of labor and to regulate the conditions of work, in
plantations, according to this act, in every plantation, the different arrangements
shall be made by the person employing to maintain at convenient places in the
plantation a sufficient supply of drinking water for all the workers, medical
facilities, canteen, recreation facilities, educational facilities, housing
facilities. The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 is intended to work for the welfare
of working women. This act applies to every establishment employing women and
provides for maternity leave and payment of certain monetary benefits for women
working during the period when they are out of employment on account of their
pregnancy or illness arising out of pregnancy, it is also stated that this act
applies to all the establishments whether a factory, mine, plantation or shop,
etc., also the state government is responsible for the implementation of this
act in agriculture and plantation while the plantation workers are covered by
this act which meets some obligations under ILO convention No. 110 for
Plantation workers. However, other women agricultural workers remain outside the
purview of this act even in the plantation sector”. It was also found out that
the workers were forced to work as bonded laborers in the name of ‘advance
payment’ and ‘contractual agreement’. “Bonded laborer is a specific form of
forced labor that describes a private contractual relationship whereby labor
incurs or inherits debts to a contractor and then must work to pay off the debt
plus interest. The bonded labor system abolition Act of 1976 prescribes
three-year
imprisonment for forcing
workers into laborers, which is considered an insufficient penalty to deter the
crime”. Even if the presence of laws it does not seem to help the conditions of
a laborer in unorganized sectors this is because of uneducated background and
lack of awareness amongst the laborers.
In an era where attempts are
being made across the world to increase women’s participation in the workforce
by implementing gender-sensitive policies. Rural women participation in India
has fallen from 36% in 2005-06 to 25.8% in 2015-16, While the rate of urban
women participation increased from 14.6% to 15.5% over the same period, this
confirms the belief that most of the laws pertaining to the workforce are
working only in the organized and urban sectors and not in rural unorganized
sectors.[7]
Recently, a circular was
issued by the Beed collector in April that said that private hospitals will
require the permission of a civil surgeon, who heads the district hospital and
medical superintendent before performing a hysterectomy. It was found out that
after the above-mentioned circular was circulated, hysterectomies have come
down by 50%. In the last three months, 200 operations took place compared to
earlier when the average of one month was around 125-130 operations. After the
circular, if a woman visits any private hospital addressing uterine-related
problems a female doctor from a government hospital will examine her, only then
permission for a hysterectomy will be given or refused. It was also mentioned
in the circular that all the hospitals carrying out such operations will be
required to have an informative board displaying all the pros and cons of
hysterectomy.
Owners and officials of the
hospitals have stated that they have practiced and maintain the ethics and
integrity of their profession further adding “that these operations occurred
across Maharashtra and Beed is being single out and disgraced”. Also, they are
saying that the health department should create awareness- which is not
happening “No-one is talking about the preventive measures women should take
during childbirth or menstruation. Secondly, if a woman has cancer due to a
uterus-related disease, then the whole village is filled with fear, if any
woman in any village is suffering from diseases related to the uterus, then it
is on her
whether she wants to get her
uterus removed or not otherwise, she will also suffer cancer, we recommend
medicines but if they don’t get any relief after taking medicines a couple of
times, they visit other doctor and get hysterectomies”. According to the
private doctor, it was also discovered that the circular regulating
hysterectomies have created issues for many patients in urgent need of the
operation. We have to send them to government hospitals where they have to
wait, is they are not able to be examined they have to go home and return the
next day. In turn, the patients have started to go to nearby districts for
operations.
According to Ashok Tangade
who is a social worker, the private hospitals not providing the reports after
the surgery to the patient is one of the clear indications of ‘Foul play’ as
the details of the operation, sonography report is the reason why the operation
is done, the figure of 4,542 was extracted from the registers of operation
theatres, the actual figure is much higher. Tangade also stated, “corrupt and
greedy doctors are the main reason behind the high number of hysterectomies in
Beed”.
But this kind of immoral act
has been reported from not only Maharashtra but also several other states in
India that include but are not limited to Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Rajasthan,
Bihar, Telangana in recent years. This is a paradigmatic example of cruelty
towards uneducated women and Clear violation of their Human Rights and
stringent actions should be taken against those who are promoting such acts for
personal gains. I believe that everyone should take a stand and unite together
as one to fight against such issues faced by the voiceless people as B.R.
Ambedkar quoted “what are we having this liberty for? We are having this
liberty in order to reform our social system, which is full of inequality,
discrimination, and other things, which conflict with our fundamental rights”.
Article Information
Human Right Violation Of Women Sugarcane Workers In Maharashtra (By-AKSHAT UNIYAL)
Author Name: AKSHAT UNIYAL
Title: Human Right Violation Of Women Sugarcane Workers In Maharashtra
Email Id: akshatuniyal1999@gmail.com
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Published 2022/07/06
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International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- Abbreviation IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
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