"I used to live on the neighbouring island of Hatiya. When I was there I had to move three times because my houses kept collapsing into the river as the flood waters changed. My first husband used to work building embankments to stop flooding. He died after catching a disease from the dirty water and because we could not afford medical treatment for him. I was left with a young son. It is considered unacceptable for a woman to work outside the home and the other villagers persuaded me to marry again shortly afterwards. I had a daughter, Jasmin, who is now eight but my husband died in 1988. My son has now married and moved away. I came to live here because I heard that the government was distributing unowned land to people like us. But they did not allocate any land to me because I am a woman. Now I’m squatting here because I have nowhere else to go. I have to go round and ask the neighbours every day for food. They usually give me something, a few taka (coins) or a handful of rice. My daughter and I are often hungry, she has to wait until I come home with something before she can eat. If I had a little bit of land, it would give me some security: I could have a kitchen garden and sell vegetables." Arfaza Begum, Bangladesh

"We do not own any land and so I have to work on other people’s land to earn a living. I get Tk 40--50 (50--62p) per day, but work is only available for about six months of the year. At other times it’s very hard. I try to save and these savings last about a month, but then I have to take out a loan. It is hard to pay back a loan, and still earn enough money for the family to survive. Last year we were not worried by the floods at first -- after all , they come every year. We kept thinking ‘the water will go down’ but it just stayed high. As the waters rose we moved onto our flat tin roof. There was very little dry wood for cooking and so we sometimes went hungry. Our animals suffered too because fodder to feed them was so short. Since last year’s floods we have been working together to raise the level of this village. You can see that it is built on a steep bank about 10 feet high. All the work is done by hand, with people carrying basket loads of earth. Even during the dry season, there is plenty of preparation that goes on for the floods." Gafur Zoarder, Bangladesh