 Good morning everyone and welcome to our panel on genuine bodies trafficking in labor in South Asia. We're honored to be in conversation today with Dr. Chatterjee, Ms. Uri Ketan and Ms. Amrita Dasgupta. Thank you all so much for being here with us today. My name is Waioma Chirasma and I'm a Tokyo student at Tufts University studying history. Before I introduce the topic of discussion for today's event, a little bit about our organization. The Tufts South Asian Regional Committee or CIRC is a student run academic discourse and research groups striving to promote student engagement with social, political, historical and economic affairs of the South Asian subcontinent. This CIRC hopes to create a space for students of all backgrounds, ideologies and identities to foster informed engagement with new and nuanced awareness of South Asia. If you would like to sign up for our e-list, please do so with the Google form that we will send out in the chat in a bit. We would also like to thank the Tufts Institute of Global Leadership for making this event possible. So today we'll range from sex work in gendered labor during the Second World War and trafficking in the similar ones to organ trafficking in contemporary South Asia. The panel promises to be a comprehensive discussion about the long duty history and practices of trafficking in gendered labor extraction in South Asia. The first speaker for today and the chair of this panel is Dr. Sarah Moey Chatterjee, who is an affiliated lecturer at the Centre of Development Studies at the University of Cambridge. At the Centre of Development Studies, Dr. Chatterjee needs a course on migration and human trafficking offered to MFIL students. She's also a by-fellow at the Lucy Cavendish College at the University of Cambridge and a research fellow at the Cambridge Centre for applied research in human trafficking. She researched the illegal trade in human organs focused on India. Our second speaker is Zodhvi Kirtan, who is a PhD student in economic and social history at the University of Oxford. Her research interests are in gender and labor in colonial India and her thesis focuses on women in the wartime economy in the Second World War in South Asia. Our third speaker is Amrita Dasgupta, who is a doctoral student at the Department of Gender Studies at SOAS in the University of London. She researches on transnational migration, borders, sexual, climate crisis in the lower Deltaik Bengal and her PhD deals with India and Bangladesh borderlands and trafficking in humans. I will now hand our discussion over to Tadakata Racta, who is a PhD student of history at DAS. So, over to you, Tadakata. Thank you, Mayoma, for that wonderful introduction. As a moderator, I do not think I have much to say when we already have Dr. Chatterjee among us for starting us off with her introductory remark on this panel. Over to you, Dr. Chatterjee. Dr. Chatterjee, you need to unmute yourself first. Am I audible now? Yes, yes, Dr. Chatterjee. Okay. Thank you so much, Tadakata, for this opportunity. So I'd like to start with a brief, a very brief mention for a story from Nobel Laureate Ramnir Tegos, a very famous story, Bicharok. So, let me share my screen. So, go from the story of Bicharok by Nobel Laureate Ramnir Tegos. So we have a character, Kiro Dahu, whose lover abandons her and runs away with all her possessions. She was left with a little child, and so she could not be in the pain of seeing her wailing child for long, and then she lives to freedom from hunger, but has to end her life and her child. But somehow she survives, but the judge sentences her to death for killing a child. The story very much shows that at that time that how much patriarchal society did not have any sympathy for a woman like Kiro Dahu, because simply in the judge's eyes she was a sex worker, a kind of apparently a fallen woman. So, the judge sentenced her to death sentence. And not only this story, there are several, at that time several fictions and non-fictions of the data showed this vulnerability of women, and which led to the state of severe deprivation and in this case, state of death. So now that was written a long time back, but how much it has changed now? How much? Even when we talk about the marginalized woman, the woman who do not have voice, the woman beneath the service, as we will explain. And how much freedom women have when they have to choose a work? Choose especially a paid work in terms of stage of internal state of socioeconomic crisis. I will quote famous philosopher, how she discusses freedom of choice in work. She says, everyone, all of us take money for our services. Some people receive good satisfactory wages, some have good control over the working conditions, but a large number of people around the world do not have that control. Rather, she links that freedom of choice of work to privilege, economic privilege, that many, rather to choose a professional, desirable working condition, she says it's a luxury, which many people all over the world do not have. And many generally problematic range of activities of work engaged by women. And when we deeply inquire into their lives, we'll see they have very little choice in very little freedom in choosing those employment, because they're severely constrained by very little options. Rather sometimes no choices at all. It's just a matter of survival for them in certain circumstances. So we go forward today, we'll discuss some of these circumstances, these socioeconomic deprivations, in which women, some socioeconomic deprivations women encounter and what kind of choices they make in those situations. Or we will give us an historical account of that. And Omrita will discuss how women in the situation of climate change induced migration and climate change induced risk, how women cope with those situations. And I will go on to discuss how women save their families or bring income to the family in terms of another kind of crisis when they have to sell their body parts. So I welcome Urvi to present. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Chatterjee. What do you will be perhaps you want to share your slides. Dr. Chatterjee, you have to stop screen sharing. Right. Thank you. I'm just going to attempt to share my slides now. I hope that's visible. All right. Great. So thank you Dr. Chatterjee and thank you, Sark for organizing this. So following on from Dr. Chatterjee's remarks, the question of women's work in survival and its importance has really hit home over the last year. Socioeconomic upheaval tremendously impacts people who live the most vulnerable and precarious lives. And as a historian, I've been preoccupied with these questions in my own research, which focuses on women in the wartime economy of Second World War, South Asia. So my talk today focuses on the gendered and racialized bodies of women in the midst of unprecedented crises in 1940s India. So the 1940s are arguably modern India, modern India's most dramatic and pivotal decade, apart from maybe the one we're in right now. But only recently have historians begun moving beyond independence movements and elite level politics. The events of 1947 followed closely on the heels of massive upheaval generated by war and famine. And the Raj as research by Ashley Jackson and Yasmin Khan has shown was central to the Allied war effort. A rising flood of resources was traveling from the Indian subcontinent all over the world in support of this war effort. And the Second World War brought with it, massive inflation and crisis after crisis began to hit eastern India in particular. Cyclone tidal wave famine and epidemics were accompanied by a growing Japanese threat on India's eastern borders. So my question is how did these huge socio economic changes in such a short period of time affect ordinary people, and particularly women who led the most vulnerable vulnerable and precarious lives so particularly lower caste and other women. So, in April 1945, the Indian Communist Party sent Ali Sardar Jafri to Cox's Bazaar in which is now in modern day Bangladesh. Cox's Bazaar was at the time a hub for Allied soldiers who were participating in the Burma campaigns of the Second World War. So there were soldiers from Britain, the United States and West Africa, who were occupying the city. And today this is the site of this is a site of the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis. Now the Communist Party activist met several young women there. And he quotes one woman in particular, a young teenage girl. Open quote, he sold me to a military man for 500. My body costs 500 rupees. When he dies, God will take those 500 rupees from his flesh. Tell me, is God just. Won't he torture my brother in his grave for selling his sister. This unnamed girl was one of potentially thousands of women who had been sold by their families in the wake of the Bengal famine of 1943. Cox's Bazaar was crowded with several women and men who was still struggling with the after effects of this famine. When rural cultivators ran out of property to sell to afford skyrocketing prices of rice, women had been next on the market. Many of them ended up in cities like Cox's Bazaar where clients were plentiful and or wound up in military work in manual labor and factories. So the unnamed teenage girl who had been sold by her brother was a member of the labor core, which was a contingent of at least 30,000 women in Bengal that worked for the British Indian War machine. And so my presentation today, explores the labor core in eastern Bengal as a case study of women's experiences of the labor market in war and famine. So the Bengal famine had a death toll of between three and five million and economists historians and scientists alike have persuasively shown that the famine resulted from wartime policy failure rather than actual food shortage. Along with the devastating famine malaria smallpox and cholera decimated the population of Bengal. But curiously, while the image of starving mother and child was ubiquitous in contemporary accounts of the famine. We don't yet have a women's history of the famine. Generally women have been conceived of as passive victims who were driven to prostitution out of crippling hunger. Now that is not inaccurate, but it is a simplification. And I argue that it is a uni dimensional approach. That is problematic for at least three reasons. So first, it ignores a longer term history of complex and multi sectoral women's labor market activity in Bengal in diverse occupations whether it's an agriculture body husking transport trade and others. Secondly, by constantly seeing women in relationship to male earners. It ignores the fact that women as individuals also lost their own livelihoods. And finally, while saying that women took to sex work because of starvation is not incorrect. It is a simplification that does not address the absence of choice in such a labor market. And the mechanisms by which that choice was taken away from women have not been analyzed yet. So let's look at some data to give you some idea of this massive upheaval that's happened. So I draw here on a survey conducted here by mohalanobis Mukherjee and Ghosh which was also used by Amartya Sen in his work on the famine and present here data disaggregated by age and sex. So at the time in Bengal, there were 108 men for every 100 women. So that was a higher there was an uneven sex ratio. Male mortality was higher in the famine so more men than women died. But here I'm interested specifically in the question of survival so I look at the survivors of the famine. And if we look at the the effects through destitution which is through impoverishment. It is the data clearly show that women were disproportionately disproportionately displaced in comparison to men. In these charts here, the blue is for male and the red for female. If we look at the estimated destitutes in January 1943 and may 1944 the two charts at the top. There are more men, there are more women than men. The only age category in which there are more male destitutes than female destitutes is in the age category of between five and 15. So in all of the other age categories there are more women in the 15 to 50 age category which is the working adult age category, the number of women destituted is double the number of men. So in January 1943 there were a total of 750,000 destitute people in May 1944 that number had gone up to cross over a million. So the chart at the bottom which shows the difference in between the two charts the new newly destituted people in that famine period. In the adult age category 45,000 adult meals were destituted compared to 97,000 adult women so more than double the number. So in the chart here, it summarizes adult destitution in May 1944 based on the occupation that they would have held in 1943. Again here the red is for female and the blue is for male. Women outnumber men in all categories in terms of destitution particularly those women who were in agricultural labor occupations. The only category in which there are more men than women who are destituted is in non agricultural labor. Some people were able to escape destitution, but they suffered a degradation in their economic status so they either lost access to a livelihood or they had to sell their assets and therefore their income earning capacity reduced. There are about 3.8 million people who suffered such a kind of degradation. And of course low caste or schedule caste rural women were massively over represented in these figures. So for example, in 1941 50 year old Narmada dasi had been well to do with four acres of land, a husband and five children. The next year, the cyclone and tidal wave in Conta and Tom look took away her husband and four of her children. And by July 1943 she was living on the Baligan railway station platform in Calcutta. But meanwhile, a joint British and American campaign to recover Burma and conduct raids on Japan on Japan necessitated the expansion of military bases in eastern India, particularly Bengal. Various ports in the province were also important points in transnational supply lines and a veritable army of laborers was needed for this war effort. And so Frida baby writes in January about January 1944 open quote, the drifting tide of the helpless on Bengals frontier is not going to the relief kitchens this year. It is finding its way into the ranks of the labor corps run by contractors, which does the 101 odd jobs necessary in the hinterland of the army, building and maintaining roads and clearing the jungle. So women walked in a variety of roles. Here you can see them carrying tankers of oil whichever right from Texas at in Calcutta. This is women laying the groundwork for airfield runways. These are photographs by the way which are drawn from the US Army Air Force records, crushing stones to help. Again, in a field construction and photographs like this one were quite prominently shared. It is definitely an effort to juxtapose the east against the modern West. So here we have this photo which is captioned native Indian women carrying baskets on their heads representing the one of the oldest forms of transportation juxtaposed against the most modern aircraft of the time the B 29 super fortress. As you will notice, they are barefoot without any protective equipment. No shoes. Sorry is without blouses and the sari is hitched up to their knees as they worked. So for the rest of the presentation I'm going to take a deep dive into Chittagong, whether, whether this labor corps had taken on an even more coercive form. And this was concentrated in the eastern end of the Bengal province, which is in modern day Bangladesh so I'm going to return to Cox's bizarre as I started this presentation with. So, these women in the labor corn Cox's bizarre worked in aerodromes in jetty building in road construction, loading and unloading, and all other kinds of manual labor that were considered unskilled by day. But they worked as sex workers by night. As a Communist Party activist reported in his report on his visitor Cox's bizarre. The contractors wanted women for the military and the women wanted cash for food. He also interviewed a 10 year old boy Suleiman who said, two truckloads of women go to work from our village. In the night, sahibs come to the contractors house I saw all sorts of women going there. And quote. So there were three main routes by which women ended up in the car. The first was those who were in extreme economic distress and had lost their livelihoods, or had been abandoned by their families. But the second route appears to have been the most prime are the most prominent one, which was true trafficking. So the selling of girls appears to have become a relatively common phenomenon at the time, because there were multiple reports about agents supplying the military with girls age 12 and older. The girls were then taken by boat to centers near the course to be sold prices range from between 10 anas and one rupee eight anas that would be at the time 1127 pence. In Borishal, for example, a Hindu woman sold her daughter to a Muslim for the unusually high price of 12 rupees. Newspapers reported about both loads of human cargo that was sold and intercepted, and once sold women were then drafted to various brothels. The Indian Self Defense League of the Mahila Atma Raksha, Samiti, which was a Communist Party relief organization has been quoted saying this practice is fully recognized and no effort at prevention is made by any person in authority. And quote. And the third group of laborers included recruits from the local population and in Cox's bizarre this included an Arachanese ethnic group of mugs. Rebecca was not a homogenous body of labor but it cleave together ethnic and religious groups through the unifying experience of displacement and destitution. And of course naturally there were informal methods of recruitment payment management and absence of regulation, since much of the management was done through military contractors, which meant that exploitation and discretionary policies were used prolifically. So on top of this already exploitative and punishing nature of work. There was also the ever present risk of sexual assault. So Saliman again was quoted saying if the women did not go to the soldiers the soldiers came to the women and forced them. And of course this was going to have a devastating impact on mental health, for instance. So let's return for a second to the girl that I began this presentation with the one who was sold for 500 rupees by her brother. The Communist Party activists had found her she had been sitting by the roadside crying bitterly and hurling abuses. And in the midst of her fragmented responses, one wonders whether she was really sold for 500 rupees when other women were being sold for even less than a rupee. But it is the military truck that emerges as a major site of her trauma in her responses to her interviewers. She says, you can never be sure what will happen in a truck. And at one point in the in her conversation with her interviewers a truck full of white soldiers arrived. And the interviewers describe her trembling and retreating within herself like a terrified bird when she saw them. There was a complex range of experiences of life in the core. And so there were some women who were able to reclaim their lives in some sense. And so it is the the story of 22 year old Cheheru that really come that really strikes me as very interesting. So she had lost a family who were agricultural laborers during the famine and epidemics and had to take to the streets where she eventually joined the labor core. Her youth and charm won the favors of the Sahibs very soon and she became a Magi or the head of a group of laborers, and after some time a small contractor. Now she did not work her job was to supply women to the labor core. That she sold her own body and made other women sell that chastity she became a pimp. She became powerful with the support of the Sahibs and started wearing high heel shoes and a wrist watch. She would move about with a stick in her hand she insulted anyone she liked. So it's Jafri in his report. By July 1945 the labor core had been shut down, but without providing for alternative employment opportunities for the women who were once again without livelihoods. What happened to the once again displaced women is unclear. There was no coordinated or centralized relief strategies, and many of them found themselves homeless once again. So just to conclude my presentation, none of the distressing outcomes described above were inevitable. The labor cost signals and intentionally unregulated wartime labor regime that was characterized by growing coercion and was aided by the colonial states willingness to turn a blind eye. Some of my other research looks at women who worked in coal mines, battling famine and inflation where they were cost and discipline through the threat of starvation. But I argue that women in their own right lost their own livelihoods and their own sources of income. Many of them were sold by their families or trafficked into sex work. Even then they were not simply passive victims but they actively looked for strategies to survive and make do while facing exploitative conditions, whether it was through relief kitchens charity working in coal mines manual labor sex work, or several of these combined. Even though they bore a disproportionate burden of an increasingly extractive and command based economy with the colonial state that had basically failed them they were women at the frontline in the battle for survival. Thank you. Thank you will be for that wonderful presentation. And giving us a starting us off with that historic perspective. And I do I'd like to invite Amrita Dasupta for her more contemporary presentation. Before I start my presentation, I would like to thank South Asian regional committee for inviting me for the panel. I would also like to thank Dr. Chatterjee and we for being part of it. I would like to thank Dr. Wanda for bringing us all together. So I just share my screen first. Because I find it very related to the to the presentation that I'm going to get. She said she quoted rather my body costs 500 rupees would go torture my brother in his grave for selling the sister. My job by addressing the social socio economic and religious deprivations caused by climate crisis in the age of Anthropocene, which has stopped the strategy quoted from Novosel. Left women with no choice in the Sundar months was only mangrove title and struggling between India and Bangladesh was in news very recently you into its devastation by the super cycle. It even sparked an unresolved debate hinged on the fact that the removal of humans from Sundar once should save the mangrove school got this first line of environmental defense, regarding which two points had been highlighted. Government led evacuations can lead to violence and murderous situations like the more each happy massacre. But the government forcibly evicted hundreds of the more he would tell it refugees from the more each happy island, citing the illegal occupation of the protected reserve forest land. Second planned retreat might reduce the effect of the escalating water levels on the islands, but might not allow the islanders to live behind the burdens of social economic marginalization, and the migrants have subsequently peace a continued denial of basic services. Nonetheless, the climatic vulnerability of living in Sundar funds is shown to be is historical is historically evident as is reflected by Reynolds map of the 1771, where all the solar bonds is shown to be depopulated by the months. Though rental attributes the reason of depopulation to the repeated exploitation by the marks in the solar ones historians and sociologists employing the. And the upgrade reassert selecting the bengal district as it here on the 24 partners by SSO value as evidence postulates that the ravages was by the tropical side flow in the area in 1582 1584 1686. 1739 has had been at the heart of this migratory phenomena resolved the resulting depopulation of Sundar. The climatic catastrophes continue to multiply in the after party and we are the potential to render the islanders as climate exams, climate exams are those who are forced to move from their homes going to severe environmental conditions. The women of Sunderbans face to faceted in one climatic and another societal or religious both are intrinsically related. The escalation of sea levels renders the land water divides a little thereby forcing the humans and non humans of the area into a direct direct today's presentation aims to use ethnographic data photographs. We have used an archival material in the form of news reports to study the impact of climate and religion in comparing the female islanders to migrate in search of better living conditions, or be trafficked into sex work. In so doing the people shall attempt to build an answer towards how these women identify themselves at the traffic trimmings animal attack widows sex workers or climate exercise. It is also imperative to evaluate if certain identities overlap. If yes, how the Sundar months witness and overlap between the animal inhabited forests and the cleared lands of human habitation. It is a common practice in the land of the ebb and flow to enter the forest on a quotidian basis and search for two backs honey fruits, the stocks of which are sold in the market to earn a little. The repeated intrusion of the humans into the forest increases the probability of animal attacks to eat up though the tiger is the most famous here. The animals that are equally feared are the snakes and the crocodiles. So much so that the dead rituals of those who have lost their lives to the tiger attack was different from those that who lost their lives to the crocodile attacks a snake bite. Tiger attack dead bodies are either never recovered from the site or buried denied a Hindu fire. The snake bite dead bodies are set afloat on a bamboo raft. However, such practices are obscure now to the extent that they seem mythological. The level of ostracization is also different for widows who lose their husbands to the tiger attack, compared to lose their husbands to other animal attacks. This exhibits the cultural hegemony of the bone baby cult and the larger typing. In the drama the miracles of bone baby nor it's the birth and life of bone baby, which is also translatable into English as the mistress of the forest, and her brother. Abandoned at birth and it's the forest raised by a deer as her own baby was only united with her family and twin brother at an adult age. And her own conscience drawn upon her parents for having forsaken her own to some preference. Soon after the reunion bone baby and she was instructed by Allah to visit the land of the ebb and flow to settle the conflict between the shape shifting sage token drive, the commander of the Tigers and the Islanders. The token drive was known to attack and kill anyone who claimed resources from this forest to resolve the inequality bone baby alongside her brother rage long wars against Mariah, the king rise mother, who had ultimately surrendered herself drawing a truce by calling bone baby her soul, meaning soul system. However, the breed of Donna and Mona to local businessmen from a nearby village resulted in the ultimate end of the rule of the book. Donna and Mona in return of the resources garnet from rise for a snap back then if you do pay as a means of sacrifice to case out refuge under the wings of my bone. Another war and shoot and concluded in the final defeat of right. This propelled only be to divide to land between the humans and the non humans. She also decreed that she would never save any of those from tiger attacks who shall accumulate forest resources out of freedom. Thus began the superstitions around tiger attacks being elements, irrespective of the religious inclinations of those attack attack, only to be avoided by the penitence of an observance of austerity by the wife's back home. This presence and dictates supersedes the other parts and goddesses of the region. She's the goddess of both the Muslims and Hindus of the Sunderbans. Following the Hindu rhythmic chance that is the door for the poor. The book reads according to the Arabic script that is from left to right. The idea primary stems from the belief that my bone baby, though the overseer of all irrespective of the animals she's under human occupation. I don't say and doing in relation to the tigers only and not the snake or the crocodiles. As the burden of the Swami Pedro, which means husband eater, a slur is shouldered by Tiger widows only. However, the myth has found historical prominence in line with the creation of the cultivable lands and building of the agricultural frontier in the lower delta. During my year long field work at the Bali Island and do the village of the Sunderbans in the year 2016 and 17. The hand in glove relation of the climate crisis tiger attack ostracization and trafficking became evident. I had interviewed more than 50 tiger widows in both the villages and most of them and use the island cyclonic storm, which has happened in the 2009 as the point of reference. They had lost their sense of time or have had built their sense of time and chronology from that time. Obviously, I have changed her name of Dulki, who lost her husband, Poritosh Mandu on March 20, 2017 near Pidbanj centered her entire narrative around the overlapping land water for land forest divide, escalated by the 2009 cycle, which made it easier for the Tigers to swim across the river and come into the villages from the forest. Her main point being that the climatic onslaught has made the human inhabited lands more accessible to the Tigers from the forest. Another tiger widow, whom I would like to call Shubhashi Das, she lost her husband to the tiger attack some 20 years ago, but her neighbors tell it was just after I love the Shubhashi's husband never returned home from the delta. The two other aspects which joined the line of my argument was when I asked a group of tiger widows and a tiger widow to pose for me standing on the boat. The tiger widows had protested. They told me they cannot access the boat. Only the tiger widow or can as he was a man. The reason they gave me was entirely rooted in the religious dictates of the delta. They told me we are tiger widows, not any other widow. We are ill omens. We have lost our right to access the boat of occupation. Our sons feed us if we have any. If not, we live by begging. We will stand on the ground. Let him stand on the boat. Take our picture like this. But if any of this women were skilled in fishing, they were now inevitably kept away from it by denying them access to the boat, and thus denying them a rightful access to livelihood. Thereby making this women more vulnerable to fall promises of housemaid jobs in the city and to being coerced into the nexus of trafficking in humans. The early rise, early rise of the women trafficked from the Sundarbans to Sronagar, Tiesha's most famous Brooklyn in Polkata, West Bengal, after any cyclonic storm or due to lack of occupation for this women in the lower delta in Bengal, A news report by HuffPost titled between the Dead Sea and Living Hell dated July 1, 2016 reports around 7000 people work in the district and 600 to 700 workers joined in the industry that is the red light industry annually. According to Dr. Shama Jichana and Epitomologist who works with Nubar Mahila Shamanal committee, a collective that fights for the right of the sex workers during the year says that during the year I'll ahead that is 2009 there was a 20 to 25 increase, 20 to 25% increase in the number of sex workers moving to the red light district from Fulham. Many of this women interview is referred to themselves as Pasha Manj, which translated to fall flooded women, but what intrigued me more was how did this women identify themselves. The connect of this women with water and land emotional dynamics is again underlined by using the phrase Pasha Manj. Pasha Manj is not only used in relation to climate crisis the escalation of the water levels and so their buns, but also in relation to the conventional usage of the Bengali term Pasha Dilo which means flooded me, which essentially translates into abandonment, a similar emotion noted by the inhabitants of the land and by the nation, family, and even the Almighty. So I end my presentation here. Thank you Amrita for that wonderful presentation. I would now like to invite Dr. Chatterjee for her presentation. Thank you so much Dr. Gautam and thank you so much Amrita and Uwe for those wonderful and very powerful presentations. I will not take much time and directly go to go to my very brief presentation so that we have some time for discussion. So, I'll share my slide. It's my, it's my slide visible. Not yet. You can click share screen and then choose the screen, but the presentation has to be open first. That's true what happened suddenly. Dr. Chatterjee I think you need to open the presentation in the background. It's already open. It's already open. And then share screen. It's already open that's the thing. Because that time I did share so it was already open now I can find it. I don't know okay. Don't worry take your time. Maybe I will open. Open my slide so and that time I did not close it when I shared last time. So perhaps you can see it perhaps you can see at the bottom of your screen if there's a symbol with P that's PowerPoint. Towards your left perhaps. Yeah, I think now now. You can see. No we can't see your slide we can see your screen but we can't see your slides. What's open is your basically your web browser. I don't know how to solve this now if I if I perhaps Dr. Chatterjee you might want to mail mail them to me. Yeah, and I can I can share it for you. Okay. Oh, found it. Yes. Right moment. Is it visible now. Yes. Yes. So my, my own work researcher focused on illegal organ trade in India. So very briefly why why there is a market in organ trade because there is a demand and supply gap in organs. And especially the trade is mainly in kidneys because we have a spare part which we can. And as we know we can also buy one kidney and donate the other kidney. And because this worldwide, there is a large increase in cases of end stage kidney disease internal disease and there is a great demand of kidney transplantation, which the supply side was not able to keep up with. And so to meet the gap between demand and supply so there is a black market in organs which which emerged in after we have successful after we are able to establish good transplant services in our country and everywhere in the world. So, but there is a so very briefly you can see my slide that there is. I'm focusing on India there are concurrently there. There are cases of trading organs. There was in 1980 there was a legal market in organs initially that women would woman and men will sell kidneys and for nominal cost and patients all over the world will come to India for a transplant. So Indian government, but then there were a lot of exploitation of the organ sellers that sometimes they will not be paid. Sometimes in absence of the knowledge organs will be taken so Indian government banned the sale of organs. But then banning the sale of organs did not stop the cases of kidney disease to rise. So somewhere this gap needs to be filled face so that then then the black markets black market in organ Frideros. And as you can see there are in 2003 for constantly there are the media reported cases of illegal trading organs. And but what I want to focus today that there is a gender dimension. There's a gender dimension this trading organs. So she for Hughes was conducted the study in 12 countries. She found that that woman are really the receiver of organs. They're mainly donors woman donate and men receive. So especially in poorer countries like India families are impoverished woman would encourage or sometimes course woman to sell their kidneys and to avoid any risk to the husbands so it's mainly women so when I go to my two case studies very brief so I interviewed these two kidney sellers in the southern part of India. And so she was a woman. Why she sold her kidney because her husband took a lot of borrowed a lot of money from the local money buyer took took our auto rickshaw but somehow that business did not was not successful. So she the husband incurred a lot of debt and the money lender was after the life of the husband. And also the around that time the woman told me that her daughter's marriage was impending so the family needed a lot of money. So what what she did. She was the savior kind of she said she sold her kidney to get them out of money. And with that money and they paid back the money lender and also did a daughter marriage. So for the time being their family was safe from the financial crisis. Similarly another woman. She sold her she saved her family from being homeless. They could not pay the rent and so their family was in the on the barge of being evicted from the home. So she sold her kidney. But what you can see from the narratives of these two women. They both say that I regret selling my kidneys. But that time they did not have any choice. Again a choiceless situation as I will call UV and Amrita reduced to a choiceless situation and both these women had to step up to sacrifice their organ and save their family from diet financial crisis. But so when I interviewed this woman it was there was some it was some yes to so 2007 the first woman my of course the name St. Maya said so long and Seema even before when the organ when the organ market was legal in the 1980s. So but both of them explained that their family is still in huge financial crisis. So they were they were saying that I regret and I even stop others to sell kidneys because they don't do any good to our financial situation we are still at the same stage of financial crisis but minus an organ minus organ and we can't even go back to a same state of physical activity. So the criticism is the conclusion is that these organ sellers they will sell kidney to save their family from a huge financial crisis but in long term they do not do any benefit to their financial situation of the family. Rather their capacity to earn decreases so socio economically and also there's a stigma attached to it that you have sold kidney. So, and it is not look at very good life from the society, but still in a dire situation financial crisis they resorted to selling their kidney. But you but one thing to observe that you will that Maya the for the woman who her husband incurred the debt from the money lender but she sells the kidney not the husband. So that is so what I want to focus is there's a gender dimension to this kidney thread. So whether it is a whether it is a paid paid kidney cell or someone from a family would like like to save a dear ones life to save the family member that is that is a gender dimension so woman all over the world will tend to donate organs or cell organs more into portion than men. So as I as I would argue that all choices are made in a specific social cultural context. So why women are selling kidneys or donating more kidneys organs all over the world. And it's more specifically in a gender divisive society like India because in a patriarchal society like India may not consider the main breadwinners. So their health are supposed to preserve. So if they should not sell their kidney and fake the health, they don't should be preserved. And the studies say because women have the kind of obligation to save the family member from suffering. So they are tend to do the sacrifice more. But there are also coercion here plays a big role in some families were because the woman in where the woman have low bargaining power. They are more marginalized in their power hierarchy in a family. They are in a coercive situation. If they don't sell a kidney that they may not be able to survive in a family. They may not be surviving a marriage. So there is also coercion which so it is several cases a course choice. And it is similarly in Bangladesh. We have observed that the woman they're not able to pay payback to the for to the micro credit they have taken loans. They're selling kidneys to pay back the loans. So there are also in a case the woman because huge state and not able to pay back the loan and the husbands was giving a divorce to purchase our dignity and security in the Marital household she says a kidney. So it's again several cases a matter of survival and a course choice. Thank you. I will not elaborate more and I will open the floor for discussion. Thank you, Dr. Chatterjee for that wonderful presentation. I would invite everyone to put their questions in the Q&A. But I would like to just start us off with perhaps a question each to our three wonderful speakers. My presentation was particularly fascinating for me because the student of history, a lot resonated with my own work. My question to you is that, you know, this reminded me quite a bit about the comfort woman that we all hear about in the context of the Far East in the Second World War and the Japanese use of comfort women. You know, my question is a more theoretical question that is there something about military and war, which kind of requires this kind of supply of women. And you know, we have heard of this kind of narratives. There's something that we haven't heard about the labor core as much in South Asia, but we have definitely heard of the comfort women, and also in Nazi Germany, such practices. But what about in the post-colonial scenario? And can there be a more theoretical argument be made about a military war and the need for, you know, women, a prostitution of women in such scenarios? Thank you for that question. And just before I answered, I wanted to thank Dr. Chatterjee and Amrita for their really powerful and thought provoking presentations. Thanks very much for those. And just, okay, so to answer your question, or well, not answer, attempt to answer, because huge question. I think in the case of what we see specifically in South Asia in the wake of the famine, I think it tells us a lot about the indispensability of people and which groups in the empire, for instance, were seen as more indispensable than others. So I think what there is, is there is a consistent effort at really pushing the boundaries of what kind of behaviors are tolerated and accepted, because what is happening at the labor core was at the time, fairly well known, you know, these articles were published in newspapers, these newspapers were circulated internationally. But a few things come into play there. One is, of course, this is a Communist Party organ, which is publicizing this. Secondly, at the time the story about the labor core leaves India, it's 1945. Okay, it's April to, by the time the articles are published, it's nearly June or July, so the war is really about to end. And the Western world is too jubilant after a point to really notice the havoc it has wreaked in the periphery of the empire here. So I think that is one of the reasons why that kind of gets lost, why that story ended up then being overshadowed by also huge displacements that happened within South Asia just a couple of years after that with 1947 and what happens there. So I think, yes, in that sense that there is a larger argument about that military and the need for the supply of women in that kind of, if I just have to put it very bluntly. But I think the colonial context makes it even more interesting because I think there is more license given to certain parts of the empire to really exploit people who are present. And I think that makes it a slightly more uncomfortable story. So yes, that was and the second I think you also asked about the post colonial scenario. And that is something I just do very quickly because I know we don't have a lot of time is that obviously this is these have huge intergenerational consequences. And it is very hard to pick up on how and what because these are women who are invisible in the historical record. And these are stories that we might need to be might not have interviews or things like that in terms of picking up but maybe there are larger labor force participation trends which continue to fall in Bengal which we can think about in the context of these changes that are happening in the 1940s. So thanks. My second question would be to America. It was very interesting to see that picture where the tiger would we do or is allowed to stand on the boat, whereas the woman or the widows are not. I was wondering, is there any particular ritual or are there any particular rituals, which kind of enforces this kind of patriarchy that the tiger widows are kind of expected to follow. Thank you for that question. Basically, more than the tiger widows, when this women are actually married and their husbands are alive. These rituals, they're expected to perform these rituals these rituals of austerity so that they would not wear bangles they would not put for a million on their on their forehead. They would not wear good clothes they would not eat good food while their husbands are out on the Delta or in the forest. So these rituals are not basically because as soon as you become a tiger we don't just like any other we don't do not. It seems like you have no other value in the family because maybe you will not be able to reproduce sense. So, so your value is gone. And more than that, in Sunderbans women have the society attaches to these married women, a kind of responsibility the responsibility to save their husbands like, like, like Sharda Mui, Dr Chatterjee was saying, you know the responsibilities on the women to save their men from the deaths that they have incurred. So, this responsibility is on the women to save their husbands from tiger attack by following rituals by praying to praying to Mahbun Vivian and the most prominent ritual I can actually remember is practicing austerity even before they have become widows themselves. Thank you. Thank you for that wonderful answer. And my final question would be to Dr Chatterjee. Interesting that you mentioned that women are supposed to be the ones giving up their organs, because they're not the primary breadwinners, but in a largely agrarian country like India. They are breadwinners in some ways. They perform huge agrarian labor. Also, you know, most of the domestic sector or domestic health sector is, you know, employed, you know, the employees women. I was wondering, you know, with this kind of attitude where women are disproportionately affected when it comes to organ trade or, you know, being forced to give up their organs. You know, how does that affect the sort of breadwining activity of the entire household. Actually, I think we lost. Sorry. Yeah, we can hear you. Yes, you're right. But problem is about recognition. So, another another author Cohen, he studied 30 women who sold their kidneys. Then it's when they were asked why you sold their kidneys and not your husband, they gave the same same answer that oh no they have to work. But ironically these same women have gone back to work within two three days of after donate after giving up their kidneys. That's not a problem. It's not about actually they're not the breadwinner is about that recognition about recognition from the society recognition from themselves that they are also equally part equal participant in the in paid work in earning money. So, because of this prevalent notion that men have to be the breadwinner in the family, and they should be recognized that way so that. And also this perhaps it's also the sense of, as I said, they have they take the responsibility to relieve suffering that social norms. The choice is made in a specific socio cultural context is the social norms, which would drive this choice that know I have to save my family. But problem becomes when there is no other option as as as the as we say about choice as we say about in capability approach that will they have other alternative are they given enough options not to sell. If the husband come forward, then then that is a different cause the husbands are not willing to come forward, the men members of the family are not willing to come forward. So what happens all over the world, the in India that divide is even wider that it's always the mothers, sisters, wives, they are giving up their organs, not the fathers, brothers, or, or husbands. One of the medical professionals interviewed, she she said that when husband is donating to his wife, she is doing a great job something heroic, but for the wife in our Indian so it's an obligation she has to, it's just taken for granted. So it's not actually in terms that they they're not contributing economically to the family it's that prevalent notion the social norms. So that is the biggest problem here so. Yes, when a mother is donating her kidney to the children yes she definitely has to save save the life and that motherly love and affection. And then in certain circumstances the wife has to perhaps she has to save our place in the family, especially those marginalized women who has not have but exit options, like, if not, if I don't sell my kidney driven to the situation I may be, I may be thrown out from the marital household in when it becomes a state of survival is a matter of survival it's a crisis situation so and no other alternative. So few things social norms exit options alternative the all these things altogether drive this choice. If I'm able to explain this now. Thank you. Thank you Dr. I think we have a few questions from our audience. The first question is by Asma will Hussna. I think the question is to Amrita referring to your presentation in the contemporary time. Are there any organizations or social initiatives who work in generating the employment for tiger widows as they are socially excluded is very natural that they might not be included in the workforce provided by the society of the state. Thank you for that question to be very true there are organizations. First is, there is a tiger widows association, where they bring together tiger widows, and they have purpose group discussions and they really do try to bring in NGOs so that these tiger widows or other other animal attack widows or widows widows in general. So I get some sort of occupation like stitching mostly stitching that I have heard of and similar kind of activities is also done by the Christian aid, but somehow this trafficking nexus trafficking in human nexus in the area is so independent in in brainwashing women to you know, to travel to the city by by by the means of believing in false promises of finding housing housemates job in the city that is for the not that everyone is given false promises. And what I believe where these organizations are failing is they are unable to create enough awareness about what is happening. Somehow there is this understanding among this women that if if if they out of their will take up a sex work in Chonagachi or other brothels, they will be allowed to send back home some money and this money would be along some amount which is which is more than what they will earn by doing stitching work. Thank you. We also have a question from Emilia Salazar, although she hasn't mentioned question is for whom but I believe it is for Dr. Chatterjee. Are there roles that NGOs can play in providing better options for women in families facing dire financial situations. Dr. Chatterjee would you like to answer that question. Well definitely. I when I was listening to Amrita I was I was thinking that, yes, for example, Durbar Mohaleh Shamiti which is a very active organization. I'm sure that must be providing very active support to the woman. And what I'm also interested how much they, if Amrita will also like to contribute in that how much they are providing alternative options to these women, other than sex work. And yes, when it comes to kidney trade, well, not so much not so much the third sector is working to on these aspects for helping these women but definitely there are other NGOs which are trying to promote organ donation, especially in India, which is 0.08 per million. So that the when when there is increased organ donation this black market trade. At least will be couldn't try at least will be reduced if there is enough organs in the market. If there are enough organs are supplied definitely in just a working increasing the organ organ donation rate, but because these kidney donations a kidney cell cells are they usually it's a black market if you remember so when unless these women will will will approach some organizations for help they will be not able to help. And because it's a mark black market of kidney which operates at a very clandestine level. So, at the NGOs are not helping at as far as I know not helping at this level but definitely and promoting organ donation. And then, and definitely there are several organizations in Calcutta which must be which are working, which are helping on traffic women for example strong luck. You will be aware of Rita strong love, both working in India and Bangladesh, and do I want to let you meet the yes, and there are several programs like for alternative livelihood options. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any more questions for our speakers. We still have a few more minutes. I believe someone had raised their hand. Yeah, yeah. Would you like to ask a question perhaps you can unmute yourself and ask a question. Yeah. Okay, I think we may have lost. So, if there are no more questions, I will move towards concluding our session for today. I'd like to thank the South Asian Regional Committee of Tufts and Tufts Global Leadership Institute for extending the help and support and making this happen. Personally, I would like to also extend my gratitude to a way Oma, Meera and of course, my, without whom none of this would be possible. I would like to also thank Dr. I'm sure the main strategy for sharing this session, and will be an amrita for being part of this time. Thank you so much. And we hope to see you for the next Sark program. Why, Oma, would you like to formally conclude the session. Thank you so much for joining us today and taking your time out to do this panel. My echo everything that I said, and yes, thank you.