Pension funds and big investors are pressuring Coca-Cola, Pepsico and others over brutal working conditions in India’s cane fields. Some of the sugar buyers are tiptoeing toward change.
Sugar cane workers in Maharashtra, western India, in 2023. An investigation by The New York Times and The Fuller Project this year revealed a brutal, endemic labor system there.
Indebted workers, facing brutal working conditions, are pushed to get hysterectomies as a treatment for routine ailments. Sugar mills disclaim responsibility.
Loading sugar cane to transport it to mills in the Satara district of India’s Maharashtra State in March last year. Laborers often work in couples, paid through contractors.
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