Published: 19 Jan 2021, New Age
New Age Link: Punitive justice alone won’t end rape culture

AS THE students of different schools and colleges in Dhaka are still protesting against the rape and murder of a fellow student on January 7, the news of another woman in Noakhali being stripped and physically assaulted while the perpetrators recorded the torture is deeply shocking. On January 1, a group of local men in Hatiya, Noakhali attempted to rape a woman and later on January 16 released the tape on social media to further humiliate her. What is worrying is that another woman from Begumganj, Noakhali endured a similar form of sexual violence in October 2020 that sparked protests across the country and prompted the government to amend the relevant law to create a provision for death penalty for rapists. At least 1,627 women, as reported by Ain O Salish Kendra, were raped in 2020 and the number is higher than those of the previous years, with 1,413 in 2019 and 732 in 2018. It is in this context that feminist organisations have declared gender-based violence a national emergency in Bangladesh and suggested that legal intervention alone cannot eliminate the pervasive masculine aggression in society.

As far as official action goes, there have been some rapid developments since the disclosure of the brutal assault of the woman in Begumganj, all accused except for the local representatives are still in jail custody. A Sylhet court on Sunday framed charges against all eight accused of a case filed over the gang rape of a woman at Murari Chand College hostel and the lone accused in the rape of a student of the University of Dhaka was convicted to life imprisonment in November 2020. It was expected that speedy discharge of justice in widely reported cases will set precedence and deter rape, but in reality, an oddly disturbing trend is observed in which incidents of sexual violence are emulated as is evident in the two cases from Noakhali. The grim situation at hand, therefore, demands that the government make a comprehensive intervention to dismantle the political, social and legal apparatus that explicitly or implicitly endorse male violence. Considering that in a large majority of the recently reported rape cases, perpetrators are affiliated with the political party in power, a change in the political culture that uses male violence for partisan gain is urgently needed. Laws permitting judicial discretion to define evidence based in stereotyped assessment of the victim’s behaviour or social tendency to blame the survivor of sexual violence must also be addressed.

The government must, under the circumstances, work to undo the institutional structure that enables male violence and creates scope for victim blaming. In so doing, it must identify the existing gaps in the legal framework and ensure that rape victims are not revictimised during the trial. For a healthy understanding of sexuality and an awareness of the legal consequences of sexual violence, the government must consider incorporating gender and sex education in primary and secondary levels of education.