How climate change is hurting women in India’s tribal communities

Devi (not her real name), 65, has spent much of her life feeding her eight children — four boys and four girls — with limited resources. Widowed at a young age, her husband left her a small plot of land to farm in her village of Chhaktala, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Although the family managed well at first, over the last decade the land has become virtually unusable for cultivation for most of the year.

Devi’s youngest daughter Rashmi (not her real name), 12 years old and tired of the situation, told her mother in April 2022 that she had found a job in construction in the town of Alirajpur, near her village. Rashmi was not the first girl in her area to seek and accept such employment. The land that once sufficed to feed and support families like Devi’s has long since failed them, and young people have no choice but to seek often precarious work. “Every member of the family has to work in our village; age doesn’t matter,” says Devi. The teenager went to the nearby market to buy new clothes for her job, and that evening she did not return.

Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of cases of missing minors, as well as missing girls and women, in the country. In just two years between 2019 and 2021, nearly 200,000 women and girls disappeared in Madhya Pradesh, according to data presented to parliament by the Ministry of Home Affairs — there is no information on how many were located. In 2022 alone, an average of 32 children went missing every day in Madhya Pradesh, of whom 24 were girls, according to a report prepared by the NGO Children’s Rights and You (CRY). Police and the government often dismiss these cases as girls running away with boyfriends, but there is one crucial factor that seems to be causing a large number of disappearances and is often overlooked: climate change.

More than three months after Rashmi’s disappearance, and after Devi’s persistent efforts to get help from the police and NGOs, the family received a call from an unknown number. On the other end of the line, Rashmi asked them to come and fetch her from a village in the neighboring state of Gujarat, over 600 kilometers (370 miles) away. She refused to reveal how she had gotten there, and with whom. Receiving no help from the local police, Devi contacted the NGO ChildLine, whose members tried to piece together the story and concluded that Rashmi had most likely been trafficked.

Every member of the family has to work in our village; age doesn’t matter”

Devi, mother of trafficking victim Rashmi

On arriving in Gujarat, the NGO workers and Devi learned that Rashmi had been married off. A man — her self-proclaimed father-in-law — insisted that he had paid nearly $4,000 to “buy” the teenager. Rashmi was unable to leave until the police intervened and threatened to report him for a child marriage offense, as it is not legal for girls under 18 to marry.

After being rescued, Rashmi revealed that she had heard about an opportunity to work in Gujarat as a laborer, but knew that her mother would never allow her to go there for an extended period of time, so she ran away. She also explained her reasons for seeking employment so far away: “My mother would cry every evening when returning from the fields. She had to feed all of us, with hardly any income from our land. I wanted to learn dressmaking, but we didn’t even have the money to buy a sewing machine. So, one day, out of helplessness, I decided to take a bus to Gujarat,” says Rashmi. On arrival, the contractor who had promised her a job sold her to a man who married her off to his son.

Forced migration

Madhya Pradesh has the largest tribal population (as India labels the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups) in the country, with more than 16 million inhabitants who fall into the category, or over 21% of the state’s population. The western districts, much of which is dominated by the Indigenous population, share borders with three states: Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. Every few months, there is a massive outmigration of workers from tribal districts of Madhya Pradesh to these states, as was the case with Rashmi.

Experts say it is impossible to address the problem of missing persons without taking climate change and forced migration into account. “The question we need to ask ourselves is why do these people have to move out en masse to look for jobs? Why they need to undertake such long and potentially risky journeys?” asks Nitesh Alawa, an activist with the Indigenous rights organization Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti.

In recent decades, Madhya Pradesh has witnessed frequent floods and long drought seasons. Although climate change is a global phenomenon, the most vulnerable are those who depend directly on the land for their livelihood. “Villages near the Narmada River [the largest river in Madhya Pradesh] are frequently flooded,” says Alawa. “Even if these people are given new lands by the government, they may not be as fertile, or enough to support entire families. The real tragedy is that tribals, who are native to all the forests and rivers, are today struggling to sustain themselves. The land has been corrupted; it is no longer enough to sustain them.”

In September 2019, more than 175 villages along the Narmada River were submerged after the Sardar Sarovar dam reached its maximum capacity. Migrating to other states permanently, and not just for a few months, is also not a viable option. “Asking tribals to give up their land is not fair. Even if it is a small plot and not fertile all year round, it is still their land. So they have to shuttle between states where they get small labor jobs and come back home for their land,” explains Radiya Padiyar, a children’s rights activist.

Precarious labor markets

The impact of climate change on women’s lives also manifests itself in a place that has become quite normal in the tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh: the labor markets. Shortly after dawn, women and girls, sometimes as young as 13, queue up waiting for men on motorcycles to arrive and offer them temporary employment. They briefly negotiate the rate, which is usually around 150-200 rupees (around $2) a day.

Our daughters are being forced to auction themselves on the streets. That’s how dire the situation is”

Harsing, a tribal activist

One of the girls in the line is 16-year-old Dhani, who says this is the third time she has come to the market. “I got two jobs before this. Both were to do cement work. They paid me a little over 200 rupees a day, which is not a lot, but it’s something,” she says. All of the women point to their families’ inability to support themselves on what their land produces. In the brief, pithy conversation between the women and the men, there is no discussion of working conditions, nor is there any verification of where the men are from. The women then ride pillion on the men’s bikes and are transported to the work site.

Harsing, a tribal activist, describes the labor markets as something akin to an auction. “What else is it? Our daughters are being forced to auction themselves on the streets. That’s how dire the situation is. By agreeing to work for anyone who offers them some cash, they are likely to come in harm’s way. Even if they do make it back, the entire process is traumatizing and humiliating, it takes a toll on their whole sense of being and their self-confidence.”

The family burden of stigma

Although Rashmi was found and brought home, many young women never are. Sakari has been missing for four years. Her family says she left her village, Haraswat, for Ahmedabad, more than 200 kilometers (miles) away in search of employment, as was common in the village. Her family never heard from her again. “We kept hoping she would return someday, but she never did. And now we don’t think she will,” says Hera, her uncle. Missing persons cases are highly stigmatized, so most families do not talk about them publicly or file police reports. “Initially, we didn’t want people in the village to find out she was missing,” admits Hera, who, years later, still carries a photo of his niece on his phone, in case he ever runs into someone who might know of her whereabouts. “Families whose daughters go missing are viewed with suspicion. But now, everyone has figured out that our daughter is missing, and we are treated differently,” Hera says.

In other cases, families of missing girls are accused of having daughters of ‘loose character’ who have eloped with a boy. “Families are apprehensive about talking about missing girls,” says Rem Singh Dodwa, chairman of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in Alirajpur. “Most people around them make it a character issue and don’t address the root cause of the matter: that these are often young girls running away to escape certain conditions, such as the land simply not being enough to feed them.”

Mental health impact

Ruma Bhattacharya, a psychiatrist and board member of the Indian Psychiatric Society, notes: “Climate change is affecting people in every sphere of life. But for tribals and agriculturalists, whose entire livelihood depends on a small piece of land, the impact is extremely grave.” Rashmi recounted that, after she was trafficked and forcibly married off, she was made to lift heavy construction material, such as cement and rocks, and scolded if she could not do it. But her mother, Devi, is convinced there was more going on. It’s been two years since the girl returned home, but she still won’t talk about what happened. “I’ve tried asking her what they did to her. But she changes the subject or leaves the room whenever I try to probe. So, I don’t bother her anymore. I am worried about her and what this incident has done to her,” she confesses.

“It’s evident that most rescued girls have undergone severe trauma,” says Manisha Bagole of the NGO ChildLine, who participated in the mission to rescue Rashmi. “We need experts to treat and counsel them. Such mechanisms do not exist in villages and small towns, where this problem is most prevalent.” The lack of such mechanisms means that rescued women never receive proper counseling. “We have mandatory physical checkups for these girls. This needs to change,” says Bagole.

“Unfortunately, mental health counseling and therapy are not part of these medical checkups. When a girl runs away trying to escape drought or other financial issues caused by climate change, and if she is eventually found, it takes years for her to really recover from the trauma,” stresses Bhattacharya, who is based in Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh. “The most prominent symptom is adjustment disorder, along with long-term depression, insomnia, nightmares, and post-traumatic stress disorder. They fled thinking they are moving toward greener pastures, but often encounter great distress. Once back, they have to adjust to a life they were not happy with in the first place,” she adds.

Once I’m gone, no one else in the family is equipped to follow up on this case. So I don’t know what happens next”

Baholi, father of missing girl Ila

Dodwa, of the Child Welfare Committee, adds that the mental health of the families is also greatly affected. “I know mothers who turned suicidal when their child has been missing for many months. The worst thing is that these are mostly poor families, who have to keep working and living from hand to mouth while they search for their missing girls. In rural areas there are no therapists. Often, in addition to doing my job, I have to double up as their counselor and as their older brother to guide them,” he explains.

Baholi and Gina’s 16-year-old daughter, Ila, went missing in June 2023 from the village of Ghata. For months, the couple heard rumors that she had run away with a young man from a neighboring village. Besides the stigma, there is another cruel fact that Baholi and Gina are all too aware of: they simply cannot afford to spend too much time searching for Ila. “Soon, I will have to go to Gujarat [a large city more over 1,100 kilometers away] to look for work. I can’t put it off any longer. I have four other children to feed,” Baholi says. “When we have harvested everything after the monsoon, there is nothing left to do here. The fields won’t produce enough to feed my family. And once I’m gone, no one else in the family is equipped to follow up on this case. So I don’t know what happens next.”

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