The Price of Austerity, Thrice Over
Written by Kazi Zaved Khalid Pasha Joy, Initiative for Right View (IRV)
In Bangladesh, women from Indigenous communities are hit hardest and supported the least: How can we capture these realities to prevent the triple violence of indiscriminate austerity?
Within the indigenous communities in Bangladesh, women pay the price thrice — as women, as indigenous minorities, and as poor, and they are deprioritized which leaves them at a major risk of exploitation.
The global financial crisis as the country starts recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on the economic situation of the Indigenous community, who have already been suffering from severe poverty and further exacerbating the poverty rate as they lose their livelihoods and enter debts. Calls for austerity risks deepening the painful troughs of already not having enough resources to survive.
There are over 54 indigenous communities in Bangladesh who live in various regions across the country. They are recognized as niche (“low”). Among them, minority Munda and Mahato communities are living in the most climate change vulnerable southwest coastal region, and needless to say — like other marginalized peoples and minorities in the world — while they have had negligible contributions to the climate crisis, they are being impacted worst.
The women of these indigenous communities are suffering the most. Women’s historic disadvantages, their lack of access to resources and information and their limited power in decision-making make them more vulnerable to the impact of crises. The Munda and Mahato women and girls are one of the most disadvantaged and socio-economically vulnerable sections of the country’s population. Gender-based violence is also a critical issue. They are deprived of human rights and denial of basic need. They are neglected; they have been deprived of their civic and human rights, economic and cultural facilities and facing social oppression.
Indigenous women must confront multiple forms of disparities and deprivation in different socio-economic sectors due to their ethnic identity, socio-economic marginalised position. Because of systemic oppression, Munda women think of their lives as nothing and often lack ambitions. Instead of going to school, young girls will spend their day doing household chores. This also hampers their education. Indigenous women lack occupational opportunity in the remote areas of their inhabitant places, widespread livelihood insecurity, widening social injustice, and massive eviction from traditional land. Then, due to lack of income opportunities, they face food insecurity, malnourishment, take on loans they are unable to repay, sell cattle to try to survive but continue to be in the vicious circle of poverty. More broadly affecting all women in Bangladesh, while control of property might result in greater financial security for indigenous women, existing customary law does not provide for automatic transfer of property and land to women.
Additionally, social rigidity to not accept women’s voice and lack of enabling environments have led to indigenous women in Bangladesh being less engaged in essential civic engagement processes, face ignorance within their own communities, are discriminated by those outside of their communities, and are left behind in society at large. The government continues to treat women from indigenous communities with little to no attention. Although the government took special measures to serve the needs of hard-core poor families via its Social Safety-net projects in 2019–20 accounting for 14.21 per cent of the total budget, hardly any of these projects were specialized to serve the indigenous communities. These programs do not consider the variation of their cultural diversity and livelihood patterns; and sometimes the programs make their conditions worse by imposing specific social structures.
Across Bangladesh, economic hardship induced by the pandemic resulted in loss of employment, income and livelihoods, and the augmentation of both unpaid and low-wage and, often, informal paid work, particularly for women. If the workers are paid, often their payments are delayed for indefinite period, and are treated badly if they demand the dues. Sometimes their payments are denied completely or partially. On top of these dynamics, we should note that, on average, indigenous Munda women get lower amount of the wages that the indigenous men get. For example, through a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with community we conducted, we found that during the pandemic time 10 out of 12 Munda women laborers in Nolpara Munda village of Koyra Sadar had faced delayed payment of wage. They did not get the payment at the end of their work and had to wait three to seven days for the payment. Ultimately, the Munda women got 250 Bangladeshi taka where men got 300 taka for the same work.
Indigenous women also predominantly live in rural and remote areas and are thus the most vulnerable in terms of lowest socio-economic status. Additionally, indigenous women have been historically discriminated on land rights issues. Traditional laws and family roles of indigenous societies still contain significant patriarchal norms. We also saw a recent case where Munda women were assaulted by members of the dominant class over a land dispute. Control of property might result in greater financial security for indigenous women, but customary law does not provide for the automatic transfer of property and land to women. Also, lack of access to resources and information makes them more vulnerable to the direct impacts of both COVID-19 and natural disasters.
We see domestic violence against women in Bangladesh is increasing, and for indigenous women GBV is fuelled by the compounding crises. In search of livelihood and income, seasonal migration is common in Munda families. Leaving families, Munda male migrate to different parts of the country which increases the roles and responsibility of women and thus cause them to face social and family insecurity. Many times women fall victim of gang rape in her house by outsiders, taking advantage of women’s vulnerability in the breakdown of foundational social structures. Broadly, the patriarchal society is the root cause of domestic violence; but the structural violence faced by indigenous women is exacerbated by their intersecting economic, social and geographic locations. Regardless of the Munda women’s unique, intersectional circumstances, the Constitution states to maintain non-discrimination for “all” the citizens in the country in blanket-fashion.
When initiating the Leave No One behind (LNOB) program with UNDP in Bangladesh, the government recognized that along with some other groups of people, ethnic communities and marginalized people might be particularly left behind. Additionally, the Prime Minister’s office has special projects/programs for the betterment of indigenous communities. However, the government’s approach in achieving the SDGs in a Whole of Society manner is failing to address the specialized needs of the marginalized women among indigenous populations. In its 7th (2016–2020) and 8th (2020–2024) Five-Year Plans, in an effort to integrate the Agenda 2030 and the goal of SDG “leave no one behind”, the government has emphasised and pledged to “empower ethnic minorities”. We believe that Indigenous people, and women, should be at the heart of the implementation of the 2030 agenda.
Reducing wage discrimination across the country requires the creation of more job opportunities with skills development to meet the specific needs of indigenous women for their economic empowerment. While the Government has been providing vocational training for the indigenous community for technical skills development, indigenous women were not consulted when the policy was being formulated or amended. It is necessary to ensure participation of indigenous women in decision-making roles and processes like in the formulation of the National Women’s Development Policy of Bangladesh. After the fact, indigenous women demanded that the policy include a separate chapter for them considering the discrimination they have been facing.
Looking at the broader policy framework of Bangladesh, the Constitution of the country does not recognise indigenous peoples as “Indigenous” (as a special category or identity marker). While the Government has initiated and formulated a number of legislations related to women, none of these legal architectures emphasise the unique identity of indigenous women and girls, let alone having specific provisions concerning their intersectional issues (i.e. effects of climate change; poverty; class status) which hinder bringing positive changes in the situation of indigenous women on the ground. Recognizing the unique structural barriers of all peoples in a nation is required for true just recovery.
Although there are a number of national level plans, strategies and laws to address violence against Bangladeshi women, the implementation and intervention process are not proactive towards ethnic minority and indigenous women. As a result, impunity pertains, and justice is denied in most cases. Despite the promise of equality, progress towards it has been slow, fragile; and dramatically undermined by the COVID-19 pandemic. Girls and women, especially indigenous, are still more likely to be poor, unhealthy, underrepresented in leadership positions, legally constrained, politically marginalized and endangered by violence. Thus, ultimately, the impacts of COVID-19 and climate change to indigenous Munda women are largely a human rights issue. Policy that lacks proper disaggregation results in inevitably discriminatory policy and increases the vulnerability of the indigenous women and girls.
