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Episode details

World Service,12 Jul 2022,27 mins

Shrimps, saris and guns

The Documentary Podcast

Available for over a year

Deep in the jungles of Bangladesh, a small group of women secretly practise army-style drills. This small team, made exclusively of female village residents, are fighting a global economic force - the world’s insatiable appetite for shrimp. The BBC's Faarea Masud investigates as the demand for shrimp is destroying the land the women have farmed for centuries, and they are willing to do everything they can to protect it from the illegal intensive farming which renders their farmland rapidly unusable. With allegations of payments made to corrupt officials to turn a blind eye, and with little financial clout themselves, the women have taken matters into their own hands in the battle with the global shrimp industry.

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