“Our Poverty has No Shame; the Stomach has No Shame, so We Migrate Seasonally”: Women Sugarcane Cutters from Maharashtra, India

During the season of sugarcane cutting, men and women seasonally migrate toward the sugar belt. Drought conditions in their native districts are always highlighted as the reasons for seasonal migration. However, existing literature on sugarcane cutters emphasizes that mostly poor, lower caste, landless, small landholders, and resourceless people migrate to the sugar belt. Even pregnant or lactating mothers are not an exception for seasonal migration and the work of sugarcane cutting. In Maharashtra, issues like poor work conditions, labor rights, financial exploitation, hysterectomy among women, citizenship status, education, and health of sugarcane cutters are already in the discussion forums. After migration, these workers live without housing, sanitation facilities, and drinking water. For women, there is no social, economic, labor, and personal security. Workers have to bathe, defecate openly, and drink untreated water. Specifically, women have special health needs, and there should not be a compromise while accessing essential health services. Considering the background information, this article considers questions like why women migrate in adversity and do women work for the Sugar Belt without facing any hardship? People at large relate the phenomenon of migration to human development or economic development. Similarly, it is possible to study internal migration or seasonal migration. Nevertheless, the analysis argues that seasonal migration of the poor, unskilled, illiterate, lower caste, landless, resourceless, and vulnerable cannot be connected to human development. Instead, we can relate it to survival at large. Significantly, the ignorance of the state towards these workers and their needs can be seen from the perspective of social exclusion.