AP investigation on treatment of women workers in palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia finds sexual and other forms of abuse.
A 16-year-old girl describes how her boss raped her amid the tall trees on an Indonesian palm oil plantation that feeds into some of the world’s best-known cosmetic brands. He then put an axe to her throat and warned her: “Do not tell.”
At another plantation, a woman named Ola complains of fevers, coughing and nose bleeds after years of spraying dangerous pesticides with no protective gear.
Hundreds of miles away, Ita, a young wife, mourns the two babies she lost in her third trimester. She regularly lugged loads several times her weight throughout both pregnancies, fearing she would be fired if she did not.
These are the invisible women of the palm oil industry, among the millions of daughters, mothers and grandmothers who toil on vast plantations across Indonesia and neighbouring Malaysia, which together produce 85 percent of the world’s most versatile vegetable oil.
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