This story was originally reported by Candice Norwood of The 19th, and republished through Rewire News Group‘s partnership with the 19th News Network. 

Every survivor of sexual assault is forced to make a calculation: What are the repercussions if they speak out?

Dolores Huerta felt the weight of the entire labor rights movement, which she feared would crumble if she accused civil rights leader Cesar Chavez of sexual abuse.

“The weight of that calculation is the same weight for every single survivor in the farm worker industry,” attorney Karla Altmayer told The 19th. “They’re not thinking about the movement, but they’re thinking about: ‘Will my family be able to work next year?’ ‘Will I be abandoned in the field?’ ‘Will I be killed?’”

Huerta’s experience with sexual violence, and her reason for keeping it secret—first reported in a New York Times investigation — echos a current of fear running through the farmworkers she spent her life advocating for. An estimated 26 percent of U.S. farmworkers are women, and they face disproportionate risk of sexual harassment and assault in their workplaces. A majority of women farmworkers are Latina and foreign-born. Data capturing the full scope of sexual violence they experience is scarce.

One 2010 survey found that 80 percent of respondents—150 Mexican and Mexican-descent women working in the fields of California’s Central Valley—said they experienced some form of sexual harassment. A 2015 focus group with 49 Latina farmworkers in the Pacific Northwest found that a majority of participants experienced or witnessed sexual harassment or violence in the workplace.

Farms can hire workers directly for either permanent or seasonal work planting, tending, or harvesting crops. Other times, a crew leader or contractor, sometimes called a “foreman,” recruits and supervises workers who may travel together between farms for work. Another category of farmworkers are brought into the country under the H-2A program for seasonal work, and receive housing as part of their temporary work agreement.

“Migrant workers, specifically, are traveling throughout the seasons, following crops and harvest, and so they depend on........

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