Rape, abuses in palm oil fields linked to top beauty brands
By MARGIE MASON and ROBIN McDOWELL
November 24, 2020
SUMATRA, Indonesia (AP) With his hand clamped tightly over her mouth, she could not scream, the 16-year-old girl recalls and no one was around to hear her anyway. She describes how her boss raped her amid the tall trees on an Indonesian palm oil plantation that feeds into some of the worlds best-known cosmetic brands. He then put an ax 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. Making just $2 a day, with no health benefits, she cant afford to see a doctor.
Hundreds of miles away, Ita, a young wife, mourns the two babies she lost in the 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 neighboring Malaysia, which together produce 85 percent of the worlds most versatile vegetable oil.
More:
https://apnews.com/article/palm-oil-abuse-investigation-cosmetics-2a209d60c42bf0e8fcc6f8ea6daa11c7
niyad
(113,229 posts)Response to Judi Lynn (Original post)
niyad This message was self-deleted by its author.
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Like the article says ... it's very versatile.
The habitat destruction going on to grow all this stuff is going to cause a lot more pain the long run on top of the misery in the plantations.
But hey you gotta keep raping the earth to keep pumping out product for the 7,000,000,000 of us humans on the planet
northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)I tried to search for products which have no palm oil, but not very successful. Does anyone know of a good source?
JudyM
(29,225 posts)CousinIT
(9,238 posts)They can eliminate it. They won't.