Bangladesh’s only known woman rickshaw puller, Mosammat Jasmine, may be a feminist icon but to the passengers she cycles around the streets of Chittagong, she is known as “Crazy Auntie”. “I do it to make sure my sons don’t go hungry and they get a decent education at a good school,” says the mother of three as she takes a break at Chittagong bus station. “Allah has given me a pair of hands and legs to work with. I don’t beg — instead I earn a living by using his gifts,” she adds. Muslim-majority Bangladesh is one of Asia’s most conservative societies where the concept of a woman doing such a job had been unheard of before Jasmine hit the road five years ago. Left to fend for three young children when her husband ran off with another woman, Jasmine initially tried her hand at being a maid and then working in one of Bangladesh’s garment factories but found neither job suited her.

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