Shabnoor Bibi’s small frame and frail looks are deceptive. Beneath that gentle exterior she hides a resolve that is hard as steel. In her 25 years of life, she has managed to take in her stride the hard realities of day-to-day living and is hopeful of doing the same in the future.

Her father is a rickshaw puller. Unable to support a fourth child in their poor household, her parents sent her away to her maternal grandmother’s home to be brought up. She spent her life in the dusty by-lanes of Sultan Nagar in Orissa’s Bhadrak district. She barely managed to finish her primary school when at the age of 14 she was married. Within five years of her marriage she had given birth to four children, three boys and one girl. Life was difficult as her alcoholic husband would often assault and abuse her. One day under the influence of liquor, he shouted the word talaq three times and she was divorced from him.

Shabnoor Bibi took the divorce stoically and returned home to her parents. She began to work as a beedi worker, rolling beedis for long hours and working under harsh and inhuman conditions. She had little choice as she had to feed her children. Poverty forced Shabnoor Bibi to send away her elder son work as a helper in a truck. Her other two boys study at a madarssa.

Just when Shabnoor took control of her life and was managing admirably, her ex-husband demanded that she return to him. Shabnoor refused. “A drunkard has no conscience. If he can divorce once, is there any guarantee that he will not do the same thing again?” she asks.

Today, Shabnoor Bibi is an active member in the Zonal Committee of the Bhadrak Women’s Forum and volunteers her time to help women in distress. Many in the community see Shabnoor as a woman who battled against odds and emerged from the shadows of economic deprivation and the barriers in the form of traditions as a stronger person. They see her as a harbinger of change and as a person holding out hope for many other women who are in the same situation. Says Shabnoor Bibi, “ Talaq is not the end of life. If we work hard we can remedy the situation and change our lives and the attitudes of our society.”