http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2004/April/subcontinent_April533.xml§ion=subcontinent&col=SAN FRANCISCO - It took an epic lethal disaster in India some 20 years ago to free Rashida Bee and other women of Bhopal to change the world.
The 48-year-old Goldman Environmental Prize winner wore a deep purple-and-teal sari and gold parasol earrings as she spoke of her life and how the “Burdah” tradition prevented her from beginning her fight against corporate greed in the vigor of her youth.
Bee was seven when her family masked her in the “veil” of the Burdah and hid from the eyes of men outside her home. She was wed in an arranged marriage at 13 years old.
Before a toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide chemical company pesticide plant in Bhopal killed thousands of her neighbors in December 1984, Bee was illiterate and her vision of life confined to her home.
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