Camera traps, drones and other technology for monitoring wildlife like tigers and elephants are being used to intimidate, harass and even spy on women in India, researchers said yesterday.
In one particularly egregious example, a photo of an autistic woman relieving herself in the forest was shared by local men on social media, prompting villagers to destroy nearby camera traps.
Trishant Simlai, a researcher at the UK’s Cambridge University, spent 14 months interviewing about 270 people who live near the Corbett Tiger Reserve in northern India.
Photo: AP
For women living in villages around the reserve, the forest has long been a space for “freedom and expression” away from the men in a “heavily conservative and patriarchal society,” Simlai said.
The women sing, talk about taboo subjects such as sex, and sometimes drink and smoke while collecting firewood and grass from the forest.
However, the introduction of camera traps, drones and sound recorders as part of efforts to track and protect tigers and other wildlife has extended “the male gaze of the society into the forest,” Simlai said.
On multiple occasions, drones were deliberately flown over the heads of women, forcing them to drop their firewood and flee for cover, a study led by Simlai published in the journal Environment and Planning said.
“We cannot walk in front of the cameras or sit in the area with our Kurtis [tunics] above our knees. We are afraid that we might get photographed or recorded in a wrong way,” a local woman was quoted in the study as saying.
A forest ranger told the researchers that when a camera trap took a photo of a couple engaging in “romance” in the forest, “we immediately reported it to the police.”
In perhaps the most troubling example, a photo of an autistic woman from a marginalized caste relieving herself in the forest was inadvertently taken by a camera trap in 2017.
Young men appointed as temporary forest workers shared the photo on local Whatsapp and Facebook groups to “shame the woman,” Simlai said.
“We broke and set fire to every camera trap we could find after the daughter of our village was humiliated in such a brazen way,” one local told the researchers.
Aiming to avoid the cameras, some women have started roaming farther into the forest, which has the highest density of tigers in the world. The women also sing less than they used to, which was used to deter animal attacks.
One local woman — who spoke about fear of cameras forcing her into “unfamiliar spaces” in 2019 — was killed by a tiger earlier this year, Simlai said.
Another woman took advantage of the constant surveillance.
“Whenever her husband would beat her, she would run in front of the camera so that her husband did not follow her,” Simlai said.
Overall, “these technologies are actually very good” and are revolutionizing conservation efforts, Simlai said.
However, he called for more consultation with local communities about the technology, as well as more transparency and oversight from forest authorities, and sensitive training for local workers.
“A lot of that can be done by conservation organizations that — in the first instance — introduced these technologies to the government,” Simlai added.
Rosaleen Duffy, a conservation expert at Sheffield University in the UK, said that “sadly” she was not surprised by this research.
“What surprises me is conservationists who imagine that technologies can be introduced and used in a social, political and economic vacuum,” she said.
“The cases in this research are not accidental,” Duffy said. “They were actively using the drones to provide new ways of continuing to harass women.”
While this technology can be a powerful tool to conserve wildlife, “there must be clear rules for what they can and cannot be used for, and clear consequences for anyone misusing them,” Duffy added.
Australia has announced an agreement with the tiny Pacific nation Nauru enabling it to send hundreds of immigrants to the barren island. The deal affects more than 220 immigrants in Australia, including some convicted of serious crimes. Australian Minister of Home Affairs Tony Burke signed the memorandum of understanding on a visit to Nauru, the government said in a statement on Friday. “It contains undertakings for the proper treatment and long-term residence of people who have no legal right to stay in Australia, to be received in Nauru,” it said. “Australia will provide funding to underpin this arrangement and support Nauru’s long-term economic
‘NEO-NAZIS’: A minister described the rally as ‘spreading hate’ and ‘dividing our communities,’ adding that it had been organized and promoted by far-right groups Thousands of Australians joined anti-immigration rallies across the country yesterday that the center-left government condemned, saying they sought to spread hate and were linked to neo-Nazis. “March for Australia” rallies against immigration were held in Sydney, and other state capitals and regional centers, according to the group’s Web site. “Mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together,” the Web site said. The group posted on X on Saturday that the rallies aimed to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration.” The group also said it was concerned about culture,
ANGER: Unrest worsened after a taxi driver was killed by a police vehicle on Thursday, as protesters set alight government buildings across the nation Protests worsened overnight across major cities of Indonesia, far beyond the capital, Jakarta, as demonstrators defied Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s call for calm. The most serious unrest was seen in the eastern city of Makassar, while protests also unfolded in Bandung, Surabaya, Solo and Yogyakarta. By yesterday morning, crowds had dispersed in Jakarta. Troops patrolled the streets with tactical vehicles and helped civilians clear trash, although smoke was still rising in various protest sites. Three people died and five were injured in Makassar when protesters set fire to the regional parliament building during a plenary session on Friday evening, according to
STILL AFLOAT: Satellite images show that a Chinese ship damaged in a collision earlier this month was under repair on Hainan, but Beijing has not commented on the incident Australia, Canada and the Philippines on Wednesday deployed three warships and aircraft for drills against simulated aerial threats off a disputed South China Sea shoal where Chinese forces have used risky maneuvers to try to drive away Manila’s aircraft and ships. The Philippine military said the naval drills east of Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) were concluded safely, and it did not mention any encounter with China’s coast guard, navy or suspected militia ships, which have been closely guarding the uninhabited fishing atoll off northwestern Philippines for years. Chinese officials did not immediately issue any comment on the naval drills, but they
RSS