Women living in the outlying villages of the Corbett Tiger Reserve in India spend a lot of time in the forest collecting firewood and other products, especially when winter comes and there is less work in the fields. For them, going there is not just a matter of work, they also see it as a space in which to socialize, let off steam and even sing. But it is becoming more and more complicated for them. A recent study prepared by the University of Cambridge shows how local governments and village men They are using technology dedicated to monitoring tigers and elephants to harass and spy on these women.
“No one could have imagined that camera traps installed in Indian forests to monitor mammals actually have a profoundly negative impact on the mental health of local women who use those spaces,” said Dr Trishant Simlai, a researcher at the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and lead author of the report, which has just been published in the scientific journal ‘Environment and Planning F‘.
Simlai spent 14 months near the Indian Tiger Reserve, interviewing 270 locals, including many women. In conversations, many of them drew attention to the surveillance they were victims of when they were in the forest. They can no longer wear their clothes as they did before, with their dresses tied above their knees for better movement. “We are afraid of being photographed or recorded incorrectly,” said one in conversation with the researcher.
The study also tells how, allegedly, forestry agents deliberately fly under surveillance drones in order to disturb the women and cause them to drop the firewood and fruits they have collected.
In 2017, the most delicate event narrated in the study took place. Forest agents used wildlife surveillance cameras to record an autistic woman while she relieved herself in the forest. The images were also shared through social networks by those involved. The villagers responded by going into the forest and proceeding to destroy all recording systems they found. However, not all men see it the same. Many are glad that this technology is available so they can monitor what the women are doing, or if they are really in the woods, as they say.
“We are very happy when the Forest Department installs cameras in this part of the forest, our women return early or do not go,” a villager noted in one of the interviews.
A danger for women
Spying through cameras and drones also puts women at risk, according to the study. «Many of them no longer sing songs – something considered a practice of resistance because in them they denounce the injustices they suffer – or they sing very quietly, for fear of being recorded and reported to government or community authorities. This situation has also meant that these women are now more vulnerable to possible attacks by tigers or elephants,” says Jaime Paneque-Gálvez, senior researcher at the Environmental Geography Research Center of the University of Chile, in a comment collected by SMC. Autonomous National of Mexico.
“In general, the women of these communities have had to modify their traditional behaviors in the forest due to the constant risk of being photographed or filmed,” continues the researcher who also emphasizes that, for these women, “the forest represents a fundamental space for the socialization of these women, sometimes also playing an essential role to escape from the domestic violence they suffer or to forget about their problems for a while.
For her part, Rosaleen Duffy, a conservation expert at the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom), told the ‘AFP‘that “unfortunately” she was not surprised by this investigation. “What surprises me are conservationists who imagine that technologies can be introduced and used in a social, political and economic vacuum,” he said.
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