In coastal Bangladesh, climate change devastates women’s reproductive health
8 May 2023

On a cloudy Friday morning, Asma Akhter took a break from fishing for minnows. Her clothes still wet, she sat outside her two-room home, gazing out at the waters that are both her salvation and her doom.
Like most people who live in this part of southwestern Bangladesh, Akhter’s survival depends on the river. Day after day, she nets fish in the same waterway where others farm shrimp and crabs. But in recent years, rising sea levels together with intense cyclones and catastrophic floods have reshaped the region and caused salt water to spill into the rivers, streams and soil all around Akhter — ravaging not only her livelihood but also her body.