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BANGLADESH (12 images)

The Garo women of Bangladesh
  • Newly-wed Garo couple Rijika Simsang (right) and Henry Richil, both 18, on their wedding day. In line with Garo tradition that allows women to choose their spouses, Rijika picked Henry because he was "honest and kind", and could make a good contribution to her matrilineal family unit as a carpenter. Eight years ago the land surrounding Rijika's house was all forest, but the trees have all been razed to make way for commercial plantations.

  • Garo women return from working in the fields. Unable to gather food and subsistence materials from the forest, many Garo women work as day labourers on former forest land that has been turned into banana or rubber plantations owned by large Bengali businesses. The average day labourer's rate is 100 taka (1 euro).

  • Sicilia Snal, 29, inside her mud-and-bamboo home in the Garo village of Sataria. Sicilia was shot by government forestry guards for "trespassing" in her local forest in 2006. Since the government began wholesale deforestation of the region, villagers like Sicilia have lost their traditional right to collect firewood and plants from their native land. Sicilia was badly injured in the shooting.

  • Garo women walk through land that was once native forest and has now been razed.

  • Bengali farmers working in a plantation that was once native forest.

  • Sicilia Snal, 29, defies government regulations by collecting firewood for cooking near her home in the Garo village of Sataria. Sicilia was shot by government forestry guards for "trespassing" in her local forest in 2006. Since the government began wholesale deforestation of the region, villagers like Sicilia have lost their traditional right to collect firewood and plants from their native land. Sicilia was badly injured in the shooting.

  • A young Garo women performs eyebrow threading at Shahi's Beauty Parlour in Dhaka. Thousands of young Garo women migrate to the capital and other cities to work in beauty parlours, or as housemaids, to provide financial support for their families in the depleted forest area. Unlike the majority Bengali women, who must adhere to Islamic codes of modesty and gender segregation, Garo women can work in public places and move around freely. This makes them attractive employees for Dhaka businesses that need female staff.

  • Nita (left), who is now 13, and a school friend.<br /> <br /> Among the Mandi, a remote hill tribe in Bangladesh and India, widows who wish to remarry must choose a man from the same clan as their dead husband. The only single males, however, are often much younger. So the custom evolved that a widow would offer one of her daughters as a second bride to take over her duties -including sex- when the daughter came of age.

  • Young Garo women apply wedding party makeup to a customer at Persona beauty salon, Dhaka's most exclusive salon.

  • Pirola Simsang, mother of new bride Rijika and matriarch of her large household. Acres of native forest around Pirola's home in the small village of Rajkati have been destroyed, and much of the land leased or sold off by the government to commercial banana and pineapple producers. Pirola has five daughters (Rijika is her youngest) who live on her homestead with their husbands, and they are fighting to keep their traditional way of life alive.

  • Parvin Rema, 35 (right), with her mother, 58, and their mutual husband, 41.<br /> <br /> Among the Mandi, a remote hill tribe in Bangladesh and India, widows who wish to remarry must choose a man from the same clan as their dead husband. The only single males, however, are often much younger. So the custom evolved that a widow would offer one of her daughters as a second bride to take over her duties -including sex- when the daughter came of age.

  • Quel Nokrek, 25, a young Garo woman who is studying Social Affairs at the prestigious Dhaka University. The daughter of a local schoolteacher, Quel beat off fierce competition to gain a college place and wants to return to Modhupur to work for an NGO when she graduates. "Young women in other countries dream of becoming movie stars or pop singers," she says. "But the big dream of educated Garo women is to return home and help our people."