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with gang-rape.

“Even before she was gang-raped, she was taken to the middle of a lake and raped on a boat.”

After the incident, she escaped from her home and took refuge at her sister’s house. Although local influential people knew about the incident, nobody took any steps to get justice for her, he added.

The former president of the Noakhali Bar Association lamented that there was an effort to change the system only when blood was shed -- this was not a constant process.

Khushi Kabir, coordinator, Nijera Kori, said that legal struggles were not to impact change if there is no proper social resistance against cases of rape.

“If the witnesses feel threatened by the society then the witnesses will step back,” she said.

“If Shahoshika had not shown the courage to fight back, nobody would have been able to come to this point. The kind of role played by this woman who is disadvantaged from all sides, and the way she had undergone and experienced everything that has happened to her, shows the individual sense of resilience and dissent that she has,” said Kabir.

Taslima Akhter, president of Garments Sramik Samhati Andolon, pointed out that Shahoshika’s appeals had ignited the fire of protest.

“Now she needs to move on with her life. She needs to learn an income-generation activity and stand on her own two feet,” she said.

The speakers sought the same level of promptness from the state in all cases of rape.