India: COVID, climate change pushing Sundarbans women to distress

As livelihoods diminish in the world’s largest delta, activists report spike in cases of child marriage due to poverty.

Sagar Island, India – In April last year, 17-year-old Rani Khatun, a resident of Sagar Island in the Sundarbans, would spend most of her day in school, preparing for the upcoming board exams. She wanted to be a teacher one day. Less than a year later, Khatun is a school dropout and a victim of domestic violence after a forced underage marriage. Sundarbans, the world’s biggest delta, is a 10,000 sq km (6,213 sq miles) dense forest of tidal mangroves, straddling India’s eastern coastline and western Bangladesh, opening into the Bay of Bengal.