Most rapes go unreported in our country due to social stigma and the prevailing lack of support available for victims. The women and girls who do report being raped can sometimes face antipathy or
outright hostility
Rape and blaming and punishing the victims
SYED MEHDI MOMIN
Recently a 16-year-old daughter of a farmer was married to the man who raped her. Trapped by the dictates of village elders, threatened by the rapists family, and finding themselves powerless to resist, the girls parents crumbled under the pressure. Barely a fortnight after her abduction and rape, her marriage was solemnised.
Village elders cite community honour and image as reasons for their decisions. But several women have committed suicide, protesting the arbitration of village leaders to marry them off to their rapists. In truth, the law does not permit forced marriage between a rape victim and the rapist. The arbitration by the village leaders to compel a rape victim to marry her rapist is totally illegal. Yet this is hardly an uncommon phenomenon in this country. One can easily imagine the sort of life that waits for the girl and others of her ilk in their husbands homes.
There are raped girls and women who are actually punished for their crime of being raped. Not too long ago a 16-year-old girl who was raped in Bangladesh was given 101 lashes for conceiving during the assault. The girls father was also fined and warned the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay. The rapist, as is the case usually, was pardoned by the elders. And just by the way the girl collapsed and died after receiving the 70th lash. Sometimes the perpetrators of these extrajudicial fatwas are jailed, though this is rare.
Girls and women are raped all over the country and the country is becoming a land of predators who stalk women at work, on the transports and then throw her out of a running vehicle.
Often the victim finds no way but to walk home alone. Bangladesh is a republic and its government is supposed to protect all citizens who work for sustaining themselves and to give the country a good name as a land of the dedicated workforce committed to bring economic prosperity and add social values. Nevertheless, they need protection from the state, from the society and from law --- that unfortunately many in this country do not have access to.
We see media flooded with reports of women being abducted, raped, and even killed. Only few of them seek justice. Others keep quiet fearing humiliation and of being ostracized in the society and also to have been spared from further repression by those posing as protectors. Some victims also face astounding penalty from religious bigots and selfish society leaders for alleged adulteration or being indecently or erotically dressed.
Such dictums come from those who want to confine
women into their homes and use them as machines to
produce children.
The United Nations Multi-country Study on Men and Violence recently asked men in rural and urban Bangladesh if they had forced a woman to have sex at any point in their lives. 14.1 per cent of men in rural Bangladesh and 9.5 per cent of men in urban Bangladesh said yes (10 per cent averaged).
2.7 per cent of men in rural Bangladesh and 0.5 per cent (6/1252) in urban Bangladesh had raped in the past year. In rural Bangladesh 47.4 per cent of rapists perpetrated more than once, 3.7 per cent had four or more victims, and 40 per cent first raped as a teenager. 82 per cent of rural Bangladeshi
and 79 per cent of urban Bangladeshi men cited entitlement as their reason for rape. 61.2 per cent of urban Bangladeshi men who had raped did not feel guilty or worried afterwards, and 95.1 per cent experienced no legal consequences. . 89.2 per cent of urban Bangladeshi men answered agree or strongly agree to the statement if a woman doesnt physically fight back, its not rape.
These statistics are a clear indicator of the mindset of many men in this country. Unfortunately, most rapes go unreported in our country due to social stigma and the prevailing lack of support available for victims. The women and girls who do report being raped can sometimes face antipathy or outright hostility. Human rights organisations have been protesting the insensitivity and sometimes discrimination shown by law enforcers when dealing with cases of sexual assault and rape. Five such organisations have filed a writ petition to seek justice. This has led the High Court to order the government to make sure to accept rape complaints instantly and provide required services to the victim without prejudice.
It is relevant here to mention that in Bangladesh the notorious two-finger test is still employed in rape investigations. This test consists in a physical examination of women who report rape during which a doctor inserts two fingers in the womans private parts to determine whether the woman is habituated to sex. This examination has its origin in the countrys British colonial-era laws dating back to 1872. This deters many women from reporting rape.
More than 100 experts, including doctors, lawyers, , and womens rights activists had signed a joint statement in 2013 asking for the test, which they called demeaning, to be abolished, as it does not provide any evidence that is relevant to proving the offence. Two years have passed but this inhumane system of investigation continues. The parliament has made no worthwhile progress towards desperately-needed legal reforms.
Even nuts-and-bolts measures, like enhanced funding for forensic investigations, upgrading training of to deal with sexual crimes, and making expert post-trauma support available to victims, are conspicuous by their absence.
Thankfully along with the modernisation of society, more women are being educated and are going out to work. They are breaking out of the subservient mould that society had given to them and are more independent. While this means they are more likely to be sexually abused, it also means they are more likely compared with women of a previous generation to report rapes and confront sexual predators.
There is an urgent need for sustained government
engagement on gender-based violence issues across a range of domains. Gender justice experts and activists have been raising the issues for years, but their recommendations have largely fallen on deaf ears.
Bangladesh still has unacceptably high rate of child marriage, of teenage pregnancy, and of domestic violence. Theres still a culture in many families where boys and men are fed before girls and women, so that if theres not enough milk to go around in a family, it goes to the boys.
Once the notion that women are less important in some way became accepted that it became easy to justify violence against women. Reducing impunity is imperative as is more accountability, speedier trials, consistent and appropriate sentencing policies, adequate criminal justice resources so that gender justice is not only delivered, but seen to be delivered.
There have been few concrete steps taken to change gender dynamics here.
Many men (and strangely enough, women) insist on blaming women for bringing rape upon themselves. Well few women in Dhaka dress or act provocatively (unless only if burqa clad women do not provoke you) while they are in an open place. Nevertheless the question is even if they had worn mini skirts would it be alright for men to pounce on them and molest them to their hearts content?
When it comes to conversations about any incident of sexual assault, the topic of how the survivor was dressed at the time always seems to come up in this country and indeed many other countries too. The problem is that our society holds some ridiculous beliefs around how revealing clothes supposedly increase the risk of sexual assault. First, we think that perpetrators are sex-crazed men who cant control themselves at the mere sight of a woman dressed in so-called provocative clothes.
What we have to understand is that in reality, sexual violence is rarely about sex! Whether a woman is conservatively attired or not, it doesnt make much of a difference, because sexual assault is mostly about exerting power and control over someone else. Yes even shroud-like burqa clad women are assaulted
and raped. Clothes are not a risk factor. The only risk
factor is the presence of people with perverted minds. And really, if the issue was about perpetrators not being able to control themselves around women dressed in revealing clothing, then rates of sexual assault at fashion shows and the like would be out of control.
There is also this absolutely messed up idea that women dressing in supposedly revealing clothes are asking for it. Women, and men for that matter, dress in many different ways for many different reasons. No woman wants to be rapedno matter how she is dressed.
Unfortunately aggressive sexual harassment is a daily part of women commuters in this megapolis. Inside a crowded bus a man will not hesitate to grab a ladys breasts or hips. Many women these days travel in groups, some carrying sharp objectssafety pins, pocket knivesto discourage harassers.
Men trail women on foot or on motorcycles, making crude remarks and grabbing at the dupatta that women wear to cover their chest. It happens at the bus or train stations, in the kitchen, on the road to their educational institutes or offices. Many women complain that do little to stop the phenomenon. There is no simple explanation of what it is like to be a woman in Bangladesh today. It depends on where you live, whether you are rich or poor, so on and so forth.
There are other reasons why attitudes and behaviours toward women are not changing fast enough. The problem of the bystanders. These people do not necessarily witness rape and fail to act although that happens but they have long been standing on the sidelines of the national discussion. By doing so, they help the culture of rape to continue. Often, women who suffer violence stay silent because they have no faith in the justice system. And even when they do raise their voices, the government deals with them on a case-by-case basis rather than as an issue that is endemic to the nation.
The government should take urgent measures to make sure that religious fatwas and traditional dispute resolution methods do not result in extrajudicial punishments. The government is yet to act on repeated orders of the High Court Division of the Supreme Court, beginning in July 2010, to stop
illegal punishments such as whipping, lashing, or public
humiliations.
The High Court division of the Supreme Court issued its judgment in the case on July 8, 2010, criticizing the Bangladesh government for not protecting its citizens, especially women, from cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. Saying that the punishments contravened constitutional guarantees of the rights to life and liberty, the court directed the government to investigate and prosecute those responsible and to take preventive steps with awareness campaigns in schools, colleges, and madrasas.
It instructed the Ministry of Local Government to inform all law enforcement and local government officials that extrajudicial punishments are criminal offences. On February 2, 2011, the High Court issued an additional order directing the government to publicize as an urgent matter, through electronic and print media, that extrajudicial punishments are unconstitutional and punishable offences.
Bangladesh has an obligation under international law to prevent, prohibit and punish torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It is also under an obligation to end discrimination against women as discrimination is the root of all forms of violence against women. These obligations are contained in a number of international treaties binding on Bangladesh, such as, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Bangladesh must reform its archaic laws on rape to help boost convictions and instill confidence in victims who are often too afraid to seek justice. There is every reason for an overhaul and comprehensive review of rape laws to take place, given the reality in Bangladesh of rape survivors not being able to get redress in these cases.
The writer is Assistant Editor of The Independent and can be contacted at: [email protected]
