HRW urges govt

Staff Correspondent

Bangladesh should take proper steps to support sexual assault survivors so that they are treated timely with dignity and have access to services which are necessary to combat sexual violence against women, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement yesterday.

“Bangladeshi women have had enough of the government’s abject failure to address repeated rapes and sexual assaults,” HRW South Asia Director Meenakshi Ganguly said in the statement.

“The Bangladesh government needs to finally make good on its empty promises and heed activists’ calls to take meaningful action to combat sexual violence and to support survivors,” she said.

The human rights watchdog made the call amid ongoing countrywide protests after a video clip, showing a group of men attacking, stripping, and sexually assaulting a woman in Noakhali, went viral.

Though the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has sought to remove the video from the internet, it continues to circulate widely, the HRW added.

The statement also reminded that the High Court had ordered the law ministry in January to form a commission within 30 days to address the troubling rise in sexual violence in the country, with the aim of producing recommendations by June.