How far will a person go to earn two meals a day? For hundreds of women in the Beed district of Maharashtra, survival has come at a devastating cost: the loss of their uterus.
In April 2019, a local Indian newspaper reported a shocking rise in hysterectomies in the Beed district of Maharashtra (Jadhav 2019). The report opened with a disturbing question: “Why do so many women in Maharashtra’s Beed have no wombs?” It revealed that sugarcane-cutting contractors were often unwilling to employ women who menstruate. Menstruation and pregnancy were widely perceived as obstacles to daily labour, driven by the belief that they reduce women’s physical capacity to perform physically demanding wage work. This mindset has contributed to the systematic exclusion of women and an alarming rise in unnecessary hysterectomies.
The issue resurfaced with even greater urgency in 2025, when official data exposed the scale of the crisis. Hundreds of female sugarcane workers in Beed were found to have allegedly undergone hysterectomies just before migrating for seasonal agricultural labour. Routine medical check-ups revealed that 843 women had their uteruses removed prior to leaving for sugarcane harvesting during the Diwali migration period. Particularly alarming was the age profile of these women. Of them, 477 were between 30 and 35 years old, an age when many are raising young children and remain actively engaged in the workforce.
These numbers likely represent only a small part of the actual situation. Many such surgeries go unreported, hidden behind silence, poverty, and fear. This forces us to ask an uncomfortable question: what kind of system pushes women to sacrifice their bodies just to earn a living?
Beed: Where Migration Is a Way of Life
Beed is a drought-prone district with very few local livelihood options. Year after year, families migrate to other parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Karnataka in search of work. Over time, Beed has become known as a sugarcane labour district.
The migration follows a fixed cycle. Around Diwali, thousands of workers leave their villages. They return only after six months, around March or April. Every year, nearly 1.75 lakh workers migrate from Beed, including about 78,000 women. For these families, migration is not a choice but a necessity.
The Invisible Chains of the Sugarcane Fields
Sugarcane cutting operates through a rigid contractor system. Mill owners appoint contractors, known locally as mukadams, who recruit labourers. The work is done in pairs, usually husband and wife, known as koyta. Both partners must work.
Payment does not come at the end of the work. Instead, workers receive an advance from contractors before the season begins. This advance binds them to work for the entire six months. Once the work starts, there is no room for illness, pregnancy complications, or rest.
There is no sick or paid leave. Missing a single day invites heavy fines. Falling ill becomes a financial risk, and for many workers, illness means debt.
When workers are unable to pay penalties or their contracts end early, they are pushed into debt bondage and forced to return the following year to repay old dues. The cycle repeats, trapping families for years.
Why Women Choose Surgery Over Sickness
In this brutal system, women carry the heaviest burden. Menstruation, reproductive health issues, and gynaecological pain do not pause the workday. Taking time off is not an option.
Faced with recurring health problems and no space for rest, many women are advised a drastic solution: hysterectomy. Instead of long-term treatment, counselling, or follow-up care, removal of the uterus becomes a quick fix.
Savita Dayanand Landge, a sugarcane worker in her 30s, told The New York Times, “I couldn’t afford to miss work to see the doctor.” She hoped that removing her uterus would free her from repeated medical visits and allow her to keep working without interruption. The same report quoted Dr Chaitanya Kagde, a gynaecologist at a government hospital in Beed, who admitted, “Some doctors have made it a way to earn more money.” When poverty meets an unregulated medical system, women’s bodies become sites of exploitation.
This Is Not Healthcare – It Is Violence.
Hysterectomy can be a life-saving procedure when medically required. But undergoing such a major surgery to protect one’s livelihood is not healthcare. It is structural violence. It is a violation of human rights. Women are not machines built for uninterrupted labour. They are not expendable tools in the agricultural economy. Yet, the lives of migrant women labourers in Beed tell a different story.
Despite national conversations around women’s empowerment, skill development, and equality, these women lack even the most basic facilities. Many work without access to toilets, clean drinking water, or healthcare. Menstrual hygiene is neglected, increasing the risk of infections and long-term complications.
A Call for Accountability and Change
The crisis in Beed exposes deep cracks in India’s labour, health, and social protection systems. Addressing this issue requires more than outrage. It demands accountability.
We need:
• Strong regulation of contractor systems
• Protection of labour rights for migrant workers
• Ethical oversight of medical practices
• Access to healthcare without fear of income loss
Until then, women will continue to make impossible choices between pain and poverty, and between health and hunger. No woman should have to lose a part of her body just to earn a living.
(Written by Soumyashree Mohanty, Research and Documentation Unit, CYDA)
References:
Chadha, N. (2019). Constructing the female labouring body: A case study of Beed district of Maharashtra (Discussion paper). Social & Political Research Foundation. https://sprf.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Constructing-the-Female-Labouring-Body.pdf
Rajagopalan, M., & Inzamam, Q. (2024, March 24). The brutality of sugar: Debt, child marriage and hysterectomies in India’s sugar-cane fields. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/24/world/asia/india-sugar-cane-fields-child-labor-hysterectomies.html
