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Power and influence cannot save rapists
Our leaders must send this message out loud and clear!
On the first day of this month, a class 4 student of a madrasa in Teknaf was forced into a classroom by one of her teachers and raped. The child managed to go home to her mother, but fainted from blood loss right after, and is still receiving treatment at hospital. The accused teacher was arrested on the same night.
On September 30, six rapists entered a house in Savar and gang raped a housewife. According to the rape survivor, one of these men had been stalking her for some time before the attack occurred. So far, three out of the six rapists have been arrested.
On September 29, a 22-year-old domestic worker from Cumilla was taken by her employer to a Dhaka residence, where she was allegedly raped by a member of the ruling party’s student wing. While her employer discussed the payment for “selling” her body to this man (she was apparently bargaining for Tk 10,000), the rape survivor escaped and filed a case at Mirpur police station, after which both of the accused were arrested.
One could go on and on, but even a cursory glance at media reports makes one thing extremely clear—sexual violence against women is an everyday occurrence in Bangladesh, and these are only the reported incidents. According to Ain O Salish Kendra, 975 cases of rape have been reported so far this year, with 208 of them being gang rapes.
Of these, the gang rape of a woman in a hostel of Murari Chand (MC) College in Sylhet, while her husband was kept hostage, has been at the centre of a media storm since the attack occurred on September 25. The reason behind the continued focus on this specific case is not just the gruesome and abhorrent nature of the crime, but the identity of the perpetrators—all of the accused are alleged to be activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL).
Media reports have now shed plenty of light on the activities of the accused and how they used the hostel as their “den”, despite only one of the suspects being a student of the college and a legal resident of the hostel. Weapons have been recovered from one of the rooms, and reports have emerged of College and hostel authorities who turned a blind eye to these anti-social activities. Present and former BCL leaders and activists have testified to a split between the two main factions of BCL in the area, leading to a steady stream of clashes and a shift towards thuggery in certain groups. One local BCL activist, under the condition of anonymity, told reporters that, “the group [accused of raping] often engaged in extortion and harassed women on campus.”
This perhaps strikes at the very core of the epidemic of sexual violence that has spread across our nation—it is high time we stop ignoring the fact that these hundreds of cases are often perpetrated by those who are able to act with impunity, confident of escaping the consequences of their actions either because of their own “power”, or their proximity to those who have it. If you can brazenly continue to sexually harass women on a college campus and get away with it, what is stopping you from taking it further and raping them? If you have “powerful” friends who will help cover up your tracks—as was the case of the UP chairman in Mahalchhari upazila in Khagrachhari, who prevented an underage indigenous rape survivor’s family from taking legal action, took the law into his own hands and fined the rapist a measly Tk 10,000 instead for violating a child—then what is stopping you from repeating these violent acts? If you’re confident that you are strong and your victim is “weak”, not just physically but in terms of economic and social capital; and that the authorities in charge of maintaining the rule of law are either complacent or suggestible, then what is the limit to the laws you think you are allowed to break? And finally, once you figure out the laws of the land do not apply to you and you can abuse your power in the most monstrous of ways—by violating another human being’s body without facing any consequences—then who will answer for creating monsters like you?
The current status of the MC College rape investigation shows that a little political will goes a long way. Let us not forget that it was a former organising secretary of BCL’s Sylhet unit who eventually came to the couple’s rescue and alerted the police to the crime that had occurred. The home minister vowed that none of those involved in the rape “will be spared” and despite initial hiccups in arresting the perpetrators—which included allegations that a certain group of local leaders were trying to help them evade the police—all are now in custody. Local ruling party leaders have conveniently distanced themselves from these men, and BCL leaders and activists from across the country have made public statements condemning violence against women.
However, as well-meaning as these condemnations may be, they are not enough. If women in this country are to be convinced that this show of support is more than just knee-jerk reactions, BCL units across the country should investigate every one of their own members and activists who have such allegations against them. We must remember that in a society as conservative as ours, it is no easy feat for women to come forward with their stories of abuse. The case of 19 year old Nusrat Jahan Rafi, who was burned to death after speaking out against her abuser, shows just how vulnerable even the strongest survivors can be.
An extremely grim silver lining (if we can call it that) to this hideous status quo is that more of these crimes are now being reported to the police and more importantly, steps are being taken by the security forces to arrest the culprits. However, that does not change the fact that conviction rates are shamefully low—only three percent of cases relating to violence against women and children result in a conviction, according to a 2019 report by the Women and Children Repression Prevention tribunal from five districts.
If the statistics from the aforementioned report are anything to go by now, that means that at most, only 30 of this year’s 975 rape survivors (so far) will get justice for being on the receiving end of the worst kind of violence. Will the survivor of the gang at MC College be one of these “fortunate” 30? Will the handling of this case set a precedent for all those responsible for ensuring justice for rape survivors? And most importantly, will the authorities send a loud and clear message to all potential rapists across the country on how no amount of power can ever allow abuse and misuse to this extent?
Bangladesh is a country that was borne out of horrific sexual violence perpetrated by the Pakistani military forces. Yet Bangladesh’s response to this violence was one of the most profound moments of humanity in our national history—these women were acknowledged as Birangana and later as freedom fighters, and when Bangabandhu found that many of the survivors of sexual violence were being cast out by their neighbours and families, he famously said, “Put down my name as their father’s name if anyone asks after their family background, and write their address as Dhanmondi 32. How will I ever repay the sacrifices that my daughters have made during the Liberation War?”
The Father of the Nation treated rape survivors with the honour and dignity they deserved. It doesn’t matter how quickly we become a middle-income nation or how high our remittances and export earnings are—we will never be the country he dreamed of if sexual violence continues to be an everyday occurrence in Bangladesh.
Shuprova Tasneem is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star .
Her Twitter handle is @shuprovatasneem