Arsenic contamination of groundwater and soil in West Bengal, India is a serious environmental issue with severe health effects. Since 1970s, thousands of people have died due to exposure to contaminated water through drinking and/or farming. To understand if contamination had different effects on men and women, I interviewed 42 women and 40 men from 14 contamination-affected villages, in summer 2016.

Although contamination is found to have higher health effects on men, including death, it has higher social effects on women. In rural communities, women are largely economically dependent on men. They do not own properties and their work in agricultural field remains unnoticed. Therefore, when male members die, women are denied properties. In such situations, they are forced to take up low-paying menial jobs, and/or paid less than men for the same jobs. In families with no male guardians, younger women are married-off early to protect them from being trafficked for sex. In either case (early marriage or sex trafficking), women’s health is severely compromised.

When women suffer from health problems due to contamination, they face unique challenges that men never face. They have difficulty in getting married due to change in their physical appearance, and may be disowned by their conjugal families if health effects become apparent after marriage. They are suspected of witchcraft, discriminated and socially quarantined.

This study shows that social effects of environmental pollution is different for men and women, and therefore risk mitigation efforts need to be planned separately for the different gender groups.