We’re happy to share another fascinating article from former ICKCBI Fellow Sreya Sen at Refugee Watch. In this post, Sen discusses the politics of river displacement, gender and human rights in Khulna, Bangladesh and Malda, West Bengal. Here’s an excerpt from her piece, Gender, Displacement and Resistance in South Asia: The Case of Women Uprooted by River Erosion in West Bengal and Bangladesh.
The problem of displacement caused by river erosion became extremely acute in the early years of the 21st century owing to the advent of development projects, prompting state authorities in both areas to take note of the severity of the problem. The construction of the Farakka Barrage in West Bengal for instance, has aggravated saline intrusion in both Khulna and Malda, leading to a rise in river erosion. The early part of the new millennium was also a time when International and domestic provisions for the protection of the IDP’s were widened in both India and Bangladesh in addition to the fundamental rights available for the protection of such persons in both countries. This was when Bangladesh became a signatory of the United Nations Convention of Human Rights (UNHCR) and thus bound to abide by their mandate. It became a member of the UNHCR in 2002, and consequently became bound to abide by its mandate as well as to take on board the Guiding Principles relating to IDP’s. In India, the National Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy whose draft was prepared in 1998 by the then Ministry of Rural Development, became an official policy in 2007. Additionally, India being a member of the EXCOM of the UNHCR was also bound by its mandate to look into the well being of IDP’s in the country.
Read the full article at Refugee Watch Online here.
Sreya Sen is currently a Doctoral Fellow in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Calcutta, India.