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staff largely confined to men kulis brought over on 3- yr. contracts & stiff penal code calling for imprisonment or extra forced labor if kulis tried to run away
kulis housed in baracks, frequently shifted from one division to another, high mortality rate
tho group of workers frequently recruited from same village, once on Sum. could be split up and moved around--
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a man might be working w/ kulis from a diff. part of Java & unable to communicate w/ each other
from beginning no. of women severely limited, as were the jobs they were allowed to perform
tabacco the primary estate crop thru 1st decade of 20th c
women confined in this ind. to the sorting & bundling of leaves on a piece-work bases-- one 1903 calculation indicates that female [[strikethrough]] w [[/strikethrough]] earnings below level necessary to meet daily food requirements
by 1917 "protective" labor legislation ab. implemented confining women to certain tasks
with low earning levels, many women, both married & single took
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to prostitution to support themselves Stoler quotes from novels of M.H. Szekely-Lulofs written in 1930's; she the young wife of an estate asst.
these novels describe a young women, given as wife to one of the older workers, who goes to the Chinese kuli barracks & sells herself
also a pregnant Jav. woman sold by her husband to another man
does seem that marital & other social ties brittle
by single act of prostitution woman could earn half money needed for her daily food ((true today also))
having a bed-servant (nyai) was a rule among European state personnel; young unmarried Jav. girls preferred but marriages neither binding nor respected by either male pop-- married Jav. woman could easily be moved fro the 'pondok' (kuli housing complex) to house of a European staff member
women also earned money cooking & selling food to unmarried kulis
women also worked on 3- yr. contracts; some stayed on after to earn money selling cooked food
male laborers often became indebted to these women