Yet another reason why I’ll never get hair extensions.

Trade in hair forces India’s children to pay the price

Away from the crowd sits 19-year-old Uma, one of dozens of girls living close to Chennai’s [India] main Egmore suburban rail-line, who have had nastier experiences with more unscrupulous hair collectors. ‘I was held down by a gang of men who hacked at my hair,’ she says. ‘I’m not the only one who has been attacked. I know other women who have been blackmailed and threatened to shave their own heads, in some cases their husbands have received money for their hair and ordered their wives to have their heads shaved. There is a lot of money to be made from hair not just from temples but from villages like ours, the police don’t care, they will do nothing to protect women.’

Is there nothing we won’t exploit? This makes me feel sick.