Munda girls, an Italian priest and their fight against early marriages

Arpita Ram Munda walked with me along the mud road, leaving the mud and hay-thatched houses and the endless shrimp farms behind at Bongshipur village in Shyamnagar, Satkhira. This year, she is an SSC candidate and aspires to be a nurse after her higher secondary studies. 

Arpita was taking me to Suporna Munda, her classmate at Shrifalkathi Secondary School. The two girls are the only ones in their class who belong to the Munda community. "Father Luigi said he would take us to Italy if we can go against our families for early marriage and continue our studies. We want to go there like Bahamoni and Minoti didi," Arpita said. 

Thus far, Father Paggi has taken six girls from the Munda community to Italy for successfully resisting their families’ push for early marriage. Photo: Kamrun Naher

Arpita was referring to Father Luigi Paggi – a Xaverian from Italy who came to Bangladesh in 1975. And for the last 20 years, he has been working in the Munda community of the South Western districts in Bangladesh. 

"Most of the girls in the Munda community go through early marriage and many of them die from early motherhood. I wanted to work for them, to change this cruel system," Father Paggi said. 

So he opened a tuition school for his mission in Bongshipur and started teaching English, geography and maths to the young students of the community. 

In 2013, Father Paggi came up with an idea to inspire girls to stand up against early marriage. "I announced that if they were able to protest against early marriage in their families and could continue their studies at least until they turn 18, I would take them to Italy for a vacation." 

And it seemed to have worked. 

Thus far, Father Paggi has taken six girls – Nilima Munda, Minoti Munda, Bahamoni Munda, Chompa and Shaionti Munda – to Italy. And then they all came back to their communities, continued to pursue higher studies and are currently working for the Munda community. 

Funding for their travelling was provided by friends, well-wishers and Father Paggi's relatives in Italy. "Hopefully, I am going to take three of them again in September," Father Paggi said. And one of them might be Arpita Munda who gave me a tour of the Munda village. She seems determined to get the opportunity.  

Father Paggi Luigi's journey in Bangladesh 

Father Paggi was on an old Honda motorbike, out for grocery shopping, when I first met him at 'clinic er moar' in Bongshipur. He had a khaki shirt, a pair of grey pants, and an olive fat cap on. I could not see his eyes as he wore a pair of black-tinted glasses. 

"You can go to the mission. I need to buy groceries," he said. So I carried on towards the mud road with the saline-watered shrimp farms on my right. 

At the end of the road, I found a tin-roofed, yellow-tinted brick building. This was the mission. 

"I came to your country the year Bangabandhu, along with his family, was murdered," the way he started his story, startled me. He was back with a rotten fish from the market, which he did not seem to be bothered about. Father Paggi did not use a single English word while he spoke of his journey in this country. 

Born in 1948 in Italy, Father Paggi was ordained a priest in 1972. "Everyone asks me why I never married, why I decided to live such a life. They even try to frighten me saying that I will be punished by God," Father Paggi laughed, adding, "And I always say that one needs a special call from the above to be this way. I was lucky enough to hear that call and here I am, in your country."  

His congregation sent him to Bangladesh to work in the southern Khulna district in 1975. From 1975-80, the priest served as an assistant pastor at a Catholic church in Satkhira. For the next 25 years, he worked for the poor and socially neglected Dalit community in Khulna, Jessore and Satkhira districts.

Father Paggi came to know about the small and little-known Munda community living in the Sundarbans. "The local people called them 'Buno'or forester, as they were brought here by the Jamindars to cut forests. This is not something respectful for them, I believe. Because Buno can mean wild or uncivilised, which doesn't represent this community at all," he explained. Father Paggi showed a hint of agitation while merely speaking on discriminatory views. 

In 2002, Father Paggi built the ashram (the mission) in Satkhira – this is where we were having the conversation. There is also room and accommodation at the ashram to host girls overnight if they choose to stay. 

And at one point, Father Paggi started studying the community and found that they were extremely poor, uneducated and ignored by society. 

Early marriage and Munda girls

"One major thing I noticed is that, unlike every other community, the female population in the Munda community is less than the male population," Father Paggi said. 

In 2022, Md Shaiful Huda conducted a survey of the Munda people of the Southwest coastal region of Bangladesh. He visited 43 small villages in four different upazilas in Khulna and Satkhira. 

In the research titled The Social Work with the Munda Community: The Indigenous People in the Sundarbans Areas of Bangladesh, Huda found 892 families residing. The total population is 3,758 – among them male population is 2,004 and the female population is 1,754.

"The reason for this is early marriages of girls. Most of the girls are married off before 13 or 14 in the Munda community and a huge number of these girls die because of [complications pertaining to] early motherhood," Father Paggi said.  

And so he decided to counter this phenomenon by educating the girls of this community. "But this was not easy. Even if they study in schools, they learn very little. If I start with a 6th-standard student, I have to start teaching them from the beginning," Father Paggi said. 

Md Shaiful Huda mentioned in his research one of the reasons behind this educational backwardness is the fact that the Munda have a language of their own called 'Mundary/ Nagri/ Sadri' – which doesn't have alphabets or written form. 

The Munda people talk among themselves in 'Mundary/ Nagri/Sadri' language. In effect, the Munda children neither can speak Bangla, nor understand it. Therefore, attending government schools does not prove to be fruitful.   

Father Paggi decided to open a tuition school and shelter house in his mission. "I said to the girls, they have to study and if they are forced into early marriage, they should run and take shelter in my mission. No one will force them here for anything," Father Paggi said. 

In the last 20 years, around 40 Munda girls have studied at Father Paggi's mission and protested against child marriage. But thus far, six girls managed to remain unmarried till the age of 18 and continue with their studies. 

"We studied English, geography and maths. I can talk a bit in English now, but I am very bad at maths. Every week we watched English movies there on his DVD player," Arpita said.   

'I went to Italy and it seemed like heaven' 

Bahamoni did her honours and masters in political science from Satkhira Government College. While doing her masters in 2019, she visited Italy along with her fellow residents (Minoti Munda and Oporna Munda) at Father Paggi's mission. 

"In 2011, when I was in 9th standard, my family arranged my marriage. I did not want to marry and listening to Father Paggi, I ran to his mission," recalled Bahamoni. 

In the next few years, Bahamoni finished her secondary studies and when her family was continuously telling her to stop her studies and get married, Father Paggi was sent to another village to finish her higher secondary studies. During this time, she continued working for the Munda community women.  

"Father's mission was always open for us. Every time we faced any difficulties and needed support, food or shelter, we got it from him," Bahamoni said. 

In May 2019, right before her Master's final exam, Bahamoni had her 40-day Italy tour with Minoti and Oporna Munda. "As I stepped into the country, I thought I was in some kind of heaven. We tried many kinds of food there, but I liked pasta the most," Bahamoni said.

The girls were taken to the Swiss border of Passo Spluga one day and there was snow all around. "The moment we stepped down from the car, it was freezing. We just had a photo taken and we got back inside the car at once," she continued.  

Back from that tour, Bahamoni completed her master's and started teaching in the Munda community. Currently, she is in Mymensingh with her husband, waiting for their first child to be born.

"Minoti is now living in Dhaka, pursuing higher education, [and] Oporna is in Satkhira working among the Munda women. The inspiration we got from Father Paggi, we will not let it go to waste. I will get back to my community and work for them," said a determined Bahamoni.