Friday, April 19, 2024 | 12pm to 1pm
Note: Discussion limited to CUNY faculty, staff and students.
Bangladeshi migration to Spain is resurging due to declining economic opportunities and political instabilities in Bangladesh. While a long standing community began to form in the 1980s, due to Spain’s liberal immigration laws, the community size ebbed and flowed as migrants moved to other parts of Europe. But as immigration laws have become restrictive in other parts of Europe, Bangladeshi migration to Spain has increased exponentially in the last five years. This presentation, based on 2023 ethnographic work as a Fullbright Scholar in Spain, focuses on the community-based organization, Valiente Bangla/Brave Bangla, based in Madrid, formed after a successful mobilization to stop the deportation of 34 Bangladeshi nationals in Cueta. Prof. Chaumtoli Huq will share some insights on how a relatively new migrant community, despite linguistic, cultural, and other socio-economic barriers, have been able to successfully win human rights for migrants. Also joining Prof. Huq will be Mohammed Elahi Alam, the founder of Valiente Bangla, to discuss the organization and challenges.
Author Bio
Chaumtoli Huq is an Associate Professor of Law at the CUNY School of Law focused on gender, migration, labor and human rights. Prof. Huq has devoted her entire professional career to public service focusing on issues impacting low-income New Yorkers, workers in Bangladesh, and human rights issue related to South Asia.
Prof. Huq’s recent scholarship include: "Charting Global Economic Inequalities and Emancipatory Human Rights Responses from the Ground Up" on tea workers in Bangladesh, "Women’s Empowerment in the Bangladesh Garment Industry," and "Opportunities and Limitations of the Accord: Need for a Worker Organizing Model" in an edited volume, Labor, Global Supply Chains and the Garment Industry in South Asia; and is the author of, The War on Terror on Muslim Women and Girls: Forging Transformative Solidarities (Scholar and Feminist Online, 2019). She has also produced documentaries on her work in Bangladesh, Sramik Awaaz: Workers Voices, and created a digital archive on tea workers in Bangladesh, Chai Justice (https://chaijustice.com/)
Along with holding leadership roles at Legal Services of NYC and MFY Legal Services and appointed General Counsel for Litigation for the New York City Office of the Public Advocate, Prof. Huq also served as Director of the first South Asian Workers’ Rights Project at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) as a Skadden Fellow, and as the first staff attorney to the New York Taxi Workers' Alliance. In 2019, she was awarded the Access to Justice Leadership Award by the South Asian Bar Association of New York, and in 2020 was awarded the Daynard Public Interest Visiting Fellowship to nationally recognized public interest leaders.
Prof. Huq can be followed on X (formerly Twitter) @profhuq
