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.
Crisscrossed by rivers, it is home to nearly 4.5 million people on the Indian side, with a large part of its population being subsistence farmers, dependent on fishing, paddy and betel leaf cultivation, and honey collection.
How climate change pushed women to acute distress in Sundarbans downtoearth.org.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from downtoearth.org.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.