Investigative reporters Margie Mason and Robin McDowell, whose initial reporting exposed widespread labor abuse in the palm oil industry, followed up with a comprehensive investigation into the brutal treatment of women in the production of the omnipresent ingredient, including rapes by plantation supervisors, serious health issues from toxic chemicals and injuries from back-breaking loads. The pair then traced the oil produced by these women to the supply chains of top Western beauty brands — including conglomerates that make billions of dollars as they market the empowerment of women.
A female worker sprays herbicide in a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Sept. 8, 2018. Many women are hired by subcontractors on a day-to-day basis without benefits, performing the same jobs for the same companies for years and even decades. They often work without pay to help their husbands meet otherwise impossible daily quotas.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A woman collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Feb. 21, 2018. Some female workers in palm oil plantations suffer from collapsed uteruses, called fallen womb, caused by the weakening of the pelvic floor from repeatedly squatting and carrying overweight loads.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A woman who works in a palm oil plantation speaks during an interview in Sumatra, Indonesia, Sept. 7, 2018. She worked as both a pesticide sprayer and spreader of fertilizer and said she suffered from a series of health issues, from respiratory and skin issues to a condition known as fallen womb.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
In Sumatra, Indonesia, Sept. 9, 2018, a 17-year-old mother gives a bottle to her 2-week-old baby, who she says was born as a result of a rape. She started working on a plantation as a young child to help her family survive, never going to school or learning how to read or write. One day she said her boss took her alone to a quiet part of the estate. After the attack, while still half-naked, she said the man held a blade to her throat. “He threatened to kill me with an ax. ... He threatened to kill my whole family.” Then, she said, he stood up, spit on her and walked away.
AP Photo
A worker removes floating aquatic plants from a canal in a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Feb. 22, 2018. Women must sometimes work submerged up to their waists in water often filled with snakes and agrochemical runoff.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A woman fills a spray tank with herbicide to control weeds at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Sept. 8, 2018. A group of women interviewed by the AP expressed concern over whether their arduous jobs, combined with the chemicals they handle and breathe, caused their infertility, miscarriages and stillbirths.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A woman in Sumatra, Indonesia, who sprays pesticides in a palm oil plantation, blames her red, irritated eyes on the chemicals she works with, Sept. 16, 2017. Many female workers spray toxic chemicals and spread fertilizers without wearing any protective gear.
AP Photo / Margie Mason
A woman in Sumatra, Indonesia, who sprays pesticides in a palm oil plantation displays the raw, irritated skin on her foot and damaged toenails she blames on the chemicals, in Sumatra, Indonesia, Sept. 16, 2017.
AP Photo / Margie Mason
Indonesian women deported from Malaysia for working illegally, wait to be processed by immigration officers at Nunukan, Indonesia, Dec. 6, 2018. The porous border in Borneo, an island shared by Malaysia and Indonesia, serves as a corridor for opportunistic Indonesian workers, including women and young girls hoping to pull themselves out of poverty. Many go illegally, sometimes falsifying documents or lying about their age, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
Indonesian women deported from Malaysia for working illegally, wait to be processed by immigration officers at Nunukan, Indonesia, Dec. 6, 2018. Many falsify documents or lie about their age, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation as they seek work.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
Babies and toddlers of female palm oil workers nap in a makeshift daycare center as their parents work, in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2017. Most mothers who work on palm oil plantations do not have access to childcare, forcing them to take their young children with them into the fields.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A child collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 13, 2017. Children often work to help reach quotas set by the vast plantations across Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A young girl helps her parents work on a palm oil plantation in Sabah, Malaysia, Dec. 10, 2018. Many children gather loose kernels and clear brush from the trees with machetes, never learning to read or write.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A woman walks with a sack of fertilizer to be spread at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2017.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
Female workers carry heavy loads of fertilizer at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 14, 2017. Some women spread up to 880 pounds of fertilizer — nearly a half-ton — over the course of a day. Some women say they suffer from collapsed uteruses, known as fallen womb, caused by the weakening of the pelvic floor from repeatedly squatting and carrying overweight loads. They sometimes create makeshift braces by tightly wrapping scarves or old motorbike tire tubes around their mid-sections.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
A woman rides a motorbike with a container full of chemicals on her back on a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia, Nov. 13, 2017. Some female workers spray toxic chemicals banned in many countries and linked to serious health conditions.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
Ranging in age from 6 to 102, women in a family that has worked on a palm oil plantation for five generations hold out the palms of their hands in Malaysia, Nov. 11, 2020. Like many laborers, they can’t afford to give up the company’s basic subsidized housing, creating a generational cycle the helps ensure a cheap, built-in labor force for plantation owners.
AP Photo / Binsar Bakkara
Mason and McDowell persuaded dozens of female workers to tell their searing stories, spending months getting the women to trust them and then arranging clandestine meetings in an effort to protect the workers from retaliation by plantation owners. They bypassed the stonewalling of major Western brands that refused to say whether their products contain palm oil by using company data and U.S. Customs records to link the workers’ abuse to the brands’ palm oil supply chains.
The package featured striking digital display, video and evocative photos by Indonesia-based stringer Binsar Bakkara, as well as a powerful series of closeups of workers’ hands cradling familiar products containing the fruits of their labor.
November 2020 photos show the hands of five generations of women from a family that has worked on the same palm oil plantation since the early 1900s, ranging in age from 6 to 102. They each hold products made by iconic Western companies that source palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.
AP Photo
The story is nearing 250,000 page views on AP News, with a big portion of the traffic driven by robust interactions with our Facebook post, which was shared thousands of times. The Clorox Company, which owns Burt’s Bees Inc., said it would raise the allegations of abuses with its suppliers, calling AP’s findings “incredibly disturbing.”