Women farmworkers and advocates are continuing their push against sexual harassment and abuse in agriculture, including as allegations tied to labor icon César Chavez reverberate through the movement that once rallied around him. The reporting focused on how women leaders have built their own organizing pathways—educating farmworkers about rights, supporting complaints, and pressing governments and employers to take enforcement steps—while also describing how fear and isolation can keep victims from coming forward.
The story traces one thread to the Bandana Project, a campaign launched by Mónica Ramírez to raise awareness of sexual violence against women farmworkers. Almost two decades ago, Ramírez and Dolores Huerta met at a Chicago event where Huerta promoted the need to educate farmworkers about their rights and empower women to speak out about sexual exploitation that advocates say is widespread but often underreported in agriculture. At the time, the report said, the gathering did not reflect that Huerta herself had been sexually abused by Chavez, who co-founded the United Farm Workers organization in 1962 alongside Huerta.
The allegations against Chavez, made by Huerta and other women and girls in the report, are described as showing that intimidation and fear enabling abuse in agricultural fields existed not only among managers but also within top ranks of the male-dominated labor movement. Advocates also said, however, that speaking out can mark a shift. Ramírez said the decision by women leaders to come forward—first revealing their allegations to The New York Times—reflects change since Chavez’s era.
“It feels a little bit bewildering because so many of us have grown up looking up to César Chavez,” Ramírez, founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women, said. “But we have to remind each other that this is a long-standing movement that is made of many, many people, including women leaders.” The report also quotes Líderes Campesinas, a women-led group, saying its members were “heartbroken” for survivors of abuse but also that “the pursuit of social justice never was, nor ever will be attributed to one individual.”
For many advocates, the emphasis is on enforcement and outreach that help workers identify abuse, document complaints and seek remedies without facing retaliation alone. The report said that some government figures estimate that women make up about 25% of the country’s more than 1 million hired farmworkers, and that field surveys by groups including Human Rights Watch, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the University of California-Santa Cruz have found that “some 80% or more” of women crop workers reported some form of sexual harassment.
A milestone in the story is a 1999 case brought to enforce workplace anti-discrimination law. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws, won a $1.85 million settlement against a major U.S. lettuce grower on behalf of a California worker who said she was subjected to sexual advances by managers and fired after she complained. The report said outreach efforts by EEOC investigator Bill Tamayo to farmworker labor groups included Líderes Campesinas, and that women described abuse as so prevalent that they referred to “fields of panties.”
Tamayo discussed his work in the 2013 PBS documentary “Rape in the Fields,” which the report said helped draw attention to the issue. The story said Tamayo credited grassroots groups with becoming the EEOC’s “eyes and ears” in educating workers about their rights and filing complaints. It added that since then, the EEOC has secured millions more in compensation from farmworkers who reported sexual harassment or abuse.
Advocates also described how protections can advance unevenly, with fear still shaped by isolation, language barriers and immigration status. The report said that between 2020 and 2022, more than 40% of agricultural workers had no work authorization, and that many are in the country on H-2A visas tied to employment—conditions that can increase fear of dismissal or deportation if workers speak out. Darlene Tenes, executive director of Farmworker Caravan in California, said that in meetings majorities of women still report being victims of sexual abuse, and that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has forced some advocates to cancel education conferences and instead provide resources directly and quietly.
The report also described instances where advocates said conditions have improved where stronger legal protections and protective programs have taken hold. Nely Rodriguez said sexual abuse was “bread and butter” decades ago when she worked the fields, but she said she gained a fuller understanding of her rights after joining the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, which runs the Fair Food Program with major produce buyers including Walmart and McDonald’s. The report said the Fair Food Program relies on legally binding agreements and a code of conduct that includes sexual harassment training, a complaint investigation system, accountability for perpetrators and moveable bathrooms near fields—described by Rodriguez as a “game changer” for women who otherwise sometimes relied on managers for rides and faced assault on the way.
For many women advocates, the report said a major change has come from breaking the taboo against discussing abuse in farmworker communities. Maria Inés Catalan, who worked packing vegetables in Monterey, California from 1988 to 1994, said she recalled improvements in other areas—like regulatory guarantees for water and bathroom breaks—but said sexual abuse was still routine and that she experienced it. Catalan also said that foremen in packing machines would pass women in small spaces and “call it an accident,” and that “You had to stay quiet.” The report added that organizations are now providing information, making farmworkers aware of rights and offering referrals, with advocates saying that helps workers speak out.
In a statement cited in the report, Huerta—now 95—said she kept her secret for so long because she feared that “exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement.” In that same statement, the report said, Huerta described herself as a “survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.” Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell University, said the allegations against Chavez are a reminder that the labor movement “is not immune” to abuses of power, and that Huerta’s long silence was painful because she had to keep her “respectability within the movement.” Campos-Medina added, “You cannot expect the victim to be the one that holds the person accountable, because it takes a lot of personal courage,” and said she could imagine what it would have cost Huerta to speak up while trying to co-create a union.
The report also placed the current moment in the context of broader culture shifts after #MeToo. It said that when Ramírez began legal advocacy work in Florida in 2003, she described men and women in the movement dismissing allegations as “gossip” or arguing that with limited resources, advocates needed to focus on larger issues affecting most workers. By 2017, the report said, farmworker women had been speaking out for years with less national attention, and that a coalition led by Ramírez then co-led at the time, Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, helped spur visibility through a viral open letter of solidarity with Hollywood women known as the “Dear Sisters” letter.
The report said the “Dear Sisters” letter and longstanding efforts by women-led farmworker groups were a key driver behind the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal aid to low-income women who are victims of sexual harassment and abuse, according to Jennifer Mondino, director of the fund run by the National Women’s Law Center. Mily Treviño-Sauceda, a former farmworker and executive director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, said she was angry after hearing about the allegations involving Chavez because it brought up her own experiences and the backlash she and other advocates have received. “We’ve been accused of so many different things and that has not stopped us,” Treviño-Sauceda said.
Ramírez said she believes #MeToo helped give victims, including Huerta, the language to speak about abuse. “Do I think it’s still a widespread problem? Yes. Do I think that there are many survivors who do not feel like they can come forward? Yes,” Ramírez said. “But farmworker women have exerted their power and shown their leadership on this issue, and I don’t want that to get lost.”