Staff Correspondent

Many languages spoken by indigenous people do not have any word for rape. Women of these communities who grow up in a gender-equal environment, fall victim to rape and other sexual and physical torture against the backdrop of the state’s apathy to ensure the rights of disadvantaged groups, speakers said yesterday.

They demanded that those involved in the crimes be given exemplary punishment and the victims be provided with treatment, compensation and legal aid. The demands were placed at a programme at Women’s Voluntary Association auditorium in the capital, organised by Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha and Adivasi Women’s Network.

The event was held on the occasion of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (on August 9).

Adivasi women are one of the worst sufferers of a biased state machinery while their contribution to sustainable resource management, food production, food security and tackling climate change -- done with the traditional knowledge passed down from generation to generation -- remain unacknowledged, according to a press statement.

The state consciously decides how it would treat a group of people, said Ayesha Khanam, president of Bangladesh Mahila Parishad.

Like the divisions in society based on religion and class, indigenous people are divided to continue repression, she added.

During the third-time review of human rights situation in the country, in the May 2018 Universal Periodic Review, the government received 251 recommendations but rejected four of them tied to minorities and adivasis.

The press statement claims that had the recommendations been accepted, adivasi women and girl children would have seen themselves included.

The committee that oversees the implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women expressed concern over the discrimination against women of adivasi and other disadvantaged communities at the 65th session in 2016.

Last year, 54 adivasi women and girl children were victims of physical and sexual harassment. Twenty-three of them were raped and gang-raped. Twelve were killed after rape.

An analysis showed that 85 percent of the incidents were committed by non-adivasis and 13 percent by adivasis, as per the press release.

Rape is an instrument used to control the weak, said Robayet Ferdous, a teacher of journalism at Dhaka University.

This tool is used to force adivasis out of their homes and villages with the intention of grabbing their land, which is what has been happening with plainland adivasis for decades, he said.

CHT Accord has not been implemented even 22 years after the government signed the agreement with Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity. According to data of Kapaeeng Foundation and Adivasi Women’s Network, violence against adivasi women and children has doubled since 2013.

Adivasis’ lives revolve around nature and they have been protecting hills, rivers, streams while others are destroying those, said Sanjeeb Drong, general secretary of Bangladeshi Adivasi Forum.

The environment will not be protected if they disappear, he added.