Sources and Further Reading

The pages about Gonali and the Dalit community draw on human-rights reports, academic studies, government surveys and news reporting, together with the mission’s own records from the village. The numbers in small type on those pages match the numbers below.

How we use these sources: we quote figures as the source gives them, we say when they are estimates or older, and we do not claim that any of these organisations endorses The Yahweh Mission. Figures about Gonali itself are approximate and come from local surveys and estimates gathered by the mission. If you spot an error or a newer figure, please tell us.

The Dalit community

1. International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN): BangladeshUsed for: Estimated Dalit population; discrimination, housing and land.
2. Global Forum of Communities Discriminated on Work and Descent (GFoD): BangladeshUsed for: Estimated Dalit population; poverty and food insecurity.
3. IDSN briefing paper: Dalits’ Access to EducationUsed for: Exclusion in schools; literacy of Dalit women and girls (older figures).
4. Deteriorating labor market exclusion of the Dalit community in Bangladesh, Asian Ethnicity, 2025Used for: Exclusion from better-paid work.
5. Joint NGO submission on Dalit rights in Bangladesh, UN Universal Periodic Review, 2017Used for: Untouchability practices, education, housing and land, census identity.
6. Dr. Hari Sharma Foundation: Dalits in Bangladesh, a review reportUsed for: Population estimates; the Rishi community and leatherwork.
7. Caste system and resistance: the case of untouchable Hindu sweepers in Bangladesh, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and SocietyUsed for: Cleaning work left to Harijan communities.

Water, salt and climate

8. Community perception and adaptation to safe drinking water scarcity: salinity, arsenic and drought risks in coastal Bangladesh, International Journal of Disaster Risk ScienceUsed for: Salinity, arsenic and iron as the main causes of water scarcity on the coast.
9. Optimum solution for the safe drinking water crisis in Tala Upazila, Bangladesh, Journal of Resources and Ecology, 2020Used for: Salt found in the deep aquifers of Tala.
10. Geogenic arsenic and microbial contamination in drinking water sources: exposure risks to the coastal population in Bangladesh, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 2019Used for: Arsenic and microbial contamination on the coast.
11. How salinity sank Satkhira farmers’ harvests, The Daily StarUsed for: Salt-damaged farmland and the move to shrimp farming in Satkhira.
12. Cyclone Aila: 12 years on, wounds yet to heal, Dhaka TribuneUsed for: The collapse of the coastal embankments in 2009.
13. Tackling a climate-induced water crisis, FairPlanetUsed for: Climate change and the coastal water crisis.
14. Bangladesh: 20 Million Drink Arsenic-Laced Water, Human Rights WatchUsed for: About 20 million people drinking water above the national arsenic standard.
15. Salinity in drinking water and the risk of (pre)eclampsia and gestational hypertension in coastal Bangladesh, PLOS ONE, 2014Used for: Higher sodium in drinking water and higher risk of pre-eclampsia in pregnant women.
16. Fresh areas in 30 Tala villages go under water, and 2 lakh marooned for 2 months in Satkhira, Jessore, The Daily StarUsed for: Waterlogging and the silted Kobadak River in Tala.
17. With 70% of Bangladesh flooded each year, can we break the cycle of crisis? Concern Worldwide USUsed for: Extreme-year flooding and the number of significant cyclones since 1960.

Poverty and children

18. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics: Population and Housing Census 2022Used for: Population of Satkhira district.
19. National Child Labour Survey 2022, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and ILO (via ReliefWeb)Used for: Number of working children and children in hazardous work.
20. Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2022, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (reported by BSS)Used for: National average household income of Tk 32,422 a month; national poverty rates.
21. Identifying determinants of malnutrition in under-five children in Bangladesh: insights from the BDHS-2022 cross-sectional study, Scientific ReportsUsed for: Stunting and wasting among Bangladeshi children under five (BDHS 2022).

From the mission

22. The Yahweh Mission: village surveys and local estimates gathered in Gonali (approximate)Used for: Households, income, housing, occupations and school attendance in Gonali.

Further reading

If this page has made you want to know more, these are good places to start.

• The Politics of Arsenic-free Water, Human Rights Watch
• Nepotism and Neglect: the failing response to arsenic in the drinking water of Bangladesh’s rural poor, Human Rights Watch
• Tens of millions of people in this country drink arsenic-contaminated water. It could get a lot worse, CNN
• The Poisoning of Bangladesh: how arsenic is ravaging a nation, Undark
• Drinking water salinity and maternal health in coastal Bangladesh: implications of climate change, Environmental Health Perspectives
• Unveiling the Dalit struggle: insights from Bangladesh’s movement for equality, Counterview
• Caste-based discrimination, identity politics and development discourse: the case of Bangladesh’s Dalit communities
• Survey on Children’s Education in Bangladesh 2021, ReliefWeb
• Tala Upazila, Banglapedia