We are honored to present Episode 24 of the Bangladesh Feminist Oral History Project, an initiative of the Bangladesh Feminist Archives dedicated to documenting the voices, struggles, and legacies of Bangladeshi feminists across generations.
In this episode, we speak with Professor Chaumtoli Huq, a legal scholar, movement lawyer, and transnational feminist whose work connects labor, migration, human rights, and diasporic politics.
Professor Huq is a Professor of Law at CUNY School of Law. Before entering academia, she spent years as a movement lawyer working with immigrant and South Asian workers in the United States, including founding the South Asian Workers’ Rights Project and working with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Her work brings together law and grassroots organizing to build worker power across borders.
Her research and activism are deeply connected to Bangladesh, particularly through work on garment workers, tea workers, and migrant communities. Through projects like Law@theMargins, Sramik Awaaz, and Chai Justice, she documents worker struggles, political consciousness, and transnational solidarities that link Bangladesh to global labor systems.
Across her work, she foregrounds feminist, decolonial, and worker-centered approaches to understanding labor exploitation, migration, and justice.
Topics Discussed:
-Early life, diaspora, and political formation
-Movement lawyering and worker organizing
-Labor struggles in Bangladesh and the U.S.
-Rana Plaza and global supply chains
-Feminist labor politics and environmental justice
-Faith, migration, and labor organizing
-Archives, storytelling, and worker voices
-Transnational solidarities and movement-building
-Teaching, diaspora politics, and feminist futures
About the Project:
The Bangladesh Feminist Oral History Project is a living archive of conversations with Bangladeshi feminists, activists, artists, organizers, and scholars.
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