Post-cyclone Aila and Mobility Rights of the Shora Muslim Women of the Bangladesh Sundarbans Forest

Abstract

The Shora Muslim community in the south-west coastal region of Bangladesh has been earning its livelihood in the Sundarbans forest for centuries. For this community, the traditional livelihood activities in the forest include harvesting wild honey, cutting down trees for timber, gathering firewood, and netting fishes and crabs in the rivers and channels contiguous to the forest. There are key knowledge gaps in the literature regarding the ways in which patriarchy, funnelled through misinterpretation of Islam regarding the veil (purdah), and negative labelling of women (such as in reductive terms like ‘wives’, ‘divorcees’, ‘tiger widows’), significantly restricts their freedom to earn a livelihood from the denser part of Sundarbans forest. Since the 1980s, the earning of traditional livelihoods in the forest has been affected by the consequences of extreme weather events, such as floods, salinity intrusion in the forest land, tropical cyclones, heatwaves and famines. In particular, Cyclone Aila (2009) caused severe humanitarian displacement of the Shora men and women, and damaged traditional livelihoods in the Sundarbans. As a result of Aila’s long-term socio-economic and pre-existing social forces, the mobility of the Shora women in the earning of livelihoods in the Sundarbans and within the community has been affected. Considering these aspects and using auto-ethnography as a method, this paper documents the mobility constraints, which have been an obstacle to Shora women’s full enjoyment of their human rights. These are related to gendered identity and social justice in accessing the forest since Cyclone Aila in order to earn a living. The findings suggest that post-Aila there has been a significant increase in women’s mobility in the earning of livelihoods. Women are now not only aware of their mobility rights, but are also more informed about the traditional injustices that have impaired their livelihoods.