BANGLADESH-Bold Court Judgments on Muslim Women

enhances emotional stress and tensions.
To compound matters, in Jamabaihar village, all land is owned by a single bhumihar landlord. Though originally their own, inability to pay revenue, made the bhumihar intervene and do so. Gradually, along with the revenue receipts, he also got the land recorded in his own name, rendering the local people landless. The women lease in the same land from the bhumihar, but in the absence of irrigation are able to cultivate only one maize crop on the land, 50 per cent of the yield of which goes to the landlord as rent. Cash advances taken for agriculture have to be returned with 100 per cent interest after the harvest. With men away, women have the sole responsibility of caring for their homes and cattle, and hence are forced to look for jobs as wage labour in the surrounding villages. This brings us back full circle to the woman labourer, faced with prospects of sexual harassment, unable to satisfy the needs of her children or nurture personal relationships. Not only in the case of migrant women, but here too, children are gradually drawn into the workforce, in a supportive role, if not directly.