Women in Bangladesh continue to fight against a culture that shelters, perpetuates sexual violence

Women in Bangladesh have been hitting the streets, protesting an increasing number of instances of rape and violence against women across the country. 

An absentee funeral for an eight-year-old girl was, for example, held at Dhaka University in mid-March, in continuation of students’ protests against the rape of women and girls across Bangladesh.

The actual funeral was held in her hometown, Magura, amidst tight security, after she succumbed to the injuries of a violent rape earlier in March. 

In the first two months of this year, 298 women and children were reported to have been the targets of sexual violence. Of these, 98 women, including 44 children, were raped. Other forms of violence, especially mob violence, have been rampant. 

Inside Dhaka University, a female student was harassed for not wearing a headscarf and for not being ‘modest’ enough. When the police detained the accused, a huge mob, including leaders from different student organisations, forced the police to release him.

In another instance, two women smoking near a tea shop in Lalmatia were physically harassed by a mob of locals, following which the adviser to the Home Department, Lieutenant General (Retd) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury, instead of calling for the perpetrators to be punished, suggested that both men and women should refrain from smoking in public, as it was a crime.

Protesters argue that such a callous remark undermines the gender-based nature of such violence, enabling the perpetrators to go scot-free. They have demanded his removal. 

Commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Sheikh Mohammad Sajjad Ali advised the media to avoid unpleasant words like rape, and to replace them with more palatable words that indicate oppression of women or sexual harassment. He further advised them to not sensationalise sexual violence, but to report in a ‘reasonable manner’.

Comments such as those made by Chowdhury and Ali have contributed to deepening the anger at administrative apathy to rape and sexual harassment.

Universities in Dhaka and in other parts of Bangladesh reverberated with collective chants against rape and sexual violence, with women students leading the charge. Women held midnight torch rallies inside Dhaka and Jahangirnagar universities, students of 30 graduate colleges in Dhaka blocked the historic Shahbagh junction, and many tried to break a police cordon to submit a memorandum to the chief adviser to the interim government, Muhammad Yunus, at his residence.

Many of these young women had been at the forefront of the popular uprising in July-August 2024 which ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, leader of the Awami League. They paved the way for an interim government with a host of student-leaders acting as advisers to key government departments. 

Their current slogans are reminiscent of those they chanted last year, in which they appropriated Hasina’s ‘razakar’ (collaborator) taunt to create their own revolutionary identity. 

This time, they chanted, ‘Tumi ke ami ke? Asiya’ (‘Who are you, who am I? Asiya Asiya’) — the eight-year-old girl whose rape galvanised them to return to the streets. 

Women students in Bangladesh universities are no strangers to protests against rape and other forms of sexual violence, since sexual harassment continues to be rampant within and outside campus, and is hardly ever taken seriously. 

Between 1998 and 1999, after prolonged protests by students and teachers, a Truth Assessment Committee in Jahangirnagar University identified the existence of rape squads that included powerful student leaders affiliated to political parties and outsiders who regularly raped and molested students, often at gunpoint.

New students were targeted more frequently than others and women workers from nearby garments factories were dragged to the campus and raped. Some survivors were raped several times. 

Despite the seriousness of the findings, the accused were let off after minor punishments, a culture of impunity that exists even today.

Bangladesh was born amid brutal forms of sexual violence. 

During the 1971 Liberation War the Pakistan Army and its collaborators systematically raped Bengali women. Without access to healthcare, victims suffered unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. In independent Bangladesh the survivors are called ‘Birangona’ or ‘brave warriors’ and recognised as liberation fighters.

However, resistance to a culture of shame, silencing, and impunity, especially from women, has also been strong. 

In 2020, a 37-year-old woman was beaten and stripped and the video of the incident circulated widely on social media. Widespread outrage led to a change in the laws and made rape punishable with death.

The solidarity of the women protestors against rape also flows across the border to India. After the brutal rape and murder of a young woman doctor in Kolkata’s R G Kar Medical College and Hospital, on August 9 — only four days after the deadly protests in Bangladesh which led to Hasina’s retreat — Kolkata erupted in protest against rape culture and sexual violence. 

Women students in Dhaka were quick to respond in support, giving Kolkata one of the most enduring slogans of the anti-rape movement: ‘Wherever I go, however I dress. No means no, yes means yes!’

They have also been at the forefront of challenging the culture of silence and impunity. Current protests have repeatedly invoked earlier instances of sexual violence, including the 2021 murder of college student Munia and the 2016 rape and murder of college student Tonu inside the Cumilla Cantonment. 

The current protests by Bangladeshi women are part of a long history of resistance. Occupying public spaces, especially at night, is only one part of such resistance. The protests also resist arbitrary actions by lawmakers, including fast-tracking new legislation without due consultation.

In January, a first ever all-women team from Bangladesh embarked on a winter expedition in Nepal, scaling three peaks. With the banner ‘Sultana's Dream Unbound’, they paid homage to educationist and reformer Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain’s 1905 feminist sci-fi ‘Sultana’s Dream’, which imagined a world free of violence against women.

That dream has not come true, and the women of Bangladesh continue to fight against a culture that shelters and perpetuates sexual violence. 

Samata Biswas is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator, Department of English, The Sanskrit College and University, Kolkata.

This article was first published under Creative Commons by 360info.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.