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The wombless women of Beed have emerged as talking points in the national and international media, in Maharashtra legislature and the Parliament. But Beed is only the tip of the iceberg. Wombless women are scattered across villages in India
Are women bearing the brunt of deepening rural distress in India?
Beed, a poor, backward, drought-phone patch of Maharashtra, suggests so. The district is in the spotlight in the wake of allegations of thousands of women being coerced into having hysterectomy – a surgical procedure to remove the uterus or the womb – by unscrupulous doctors.
Hysterectomies - elective surgeries recommended for women usually above a certain age (35 and older) to treat symptoms like uterine firboids and post-menopausal bleeding - are not illegal. But the poignant stories coming out of Beed are telling examples of continuing medical malpractices and the rampant misuse of hysterectomy in India.
During the sugarcane-cutting seasons, women in thousands from backward patches like Beed move to the more affluent 'sugar belt' of Maharashtra for work. Contractors and private doctors exploit their vulnerability and lack of awareness. They threaten the women by saying they won't be hired if they take time off during menstruation. Such is the plight of poor village women in these parts that they let themselves be pressured into parting with their wombs by unscrupulous doctors.
The uncomfortable truth is that there is a thin line between 'voluntary' and 'coercive', in this context. The relationship between doctor and patient is unequal. The women are too unaware and too scared to ask questions or seek better medical advice. So, the savagery of 'voluntary' hysterectomy. Contractors insist they don't force the women to have a surgery; rather, it is their families who make that choice for them.
Maharashtra Health Minister Eknath Shinde admits that 4,605 hysterectomies have taken place in Beed district alone in the past three years.
The wombless women of Beed have emerged as talking points in the national and international media, in Maharashtra legislature and the Parliament. The National Commission of Women is also concerned. The local administration has started taking corrective measures – no hysterectomies can now take place in Beed without prior authorisation from the district administration.
But Beed is only the tip of the iceberg. Wombless women are scattered across villages in India.
Illegal mass hysterectomies have been reported from not only Maharashtra, but also several other states – Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Bihar, Andhra/Telengana in recent years.
Reasons vary. However, there is a common thread in the stories of the wombless women – poverty and acute vulnerability. Poor and uneducated women working in the informal sector, often from landless families, are targeted for womb removal when they have minor ailments.
Continues: Women farmers are being forced into removing their wombs