Sexual Violence Is a Pervasive Threat for Female Farm Workers — Morning AgClips
Here’s how the US could reduce the risk of sexual violence for female farm workers
WASHINGTON — Television crime shows often are set in cities, but in its third season, ABC’s “American Crime” took a different tack. It opened on a tomato farm in North Carolina, where it showed a young woman being brutally raped in a field by her supervisor.
“People die all the time on that farm. Nobody cares. Women get raped, regular,” another character tells a police interrogator.
The show’s writers did their research. Studies show that 80% of Mexican and Mexican American women farmworkers in the U.S. have experienced some form of sexual harassment at work. Rape is common enough for some to nickname their workplace the “fields of panties.” For comparison, about 38% of women in the U.S. report experiencing some kind of workplace sexual harassment.
In a recent report, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization called for transformative changes to the formal and informal social systems that disempower women who work on farms and in the food sector around the world. While violence against women in agriculture may seem like an issue mainly experienced in developing countries, the truth is that it also happens all too often to women and girls on farms in the U.S.
As we see it, sexual exploitation perpetrated by men in positions of power instills fear that keeps farm laborers obedient, despite precarious working conditions – and keeps fruits and vegetables cheap.