What if you were there in that hotel room?
It could have been anyone.
What is the right punishment for rape?
Does this begin with hope? No. It begins with the knowledge that we are complacent, weak, and lacklustre.
Yet another rape case. Two girls this time. Will we let it slip through the cracks again?
Will we sit by idly and twiddle our thumbs, then cluck our tongues in disapproval when the authorities decide to not bring the perpetrators on the run to justice?
We have our lives to lead. What lives? The one where we go on thinking that nothing can be done? Do your memes keep you distracted enough to not even spare a shred of thought to the injustices that prevail. I don’t have to sit here and tell you “it could have been anyone.” We know it well.
It goes on and on and on, and all it gets out of us is a mere shrug and a meh? How have we become so desensitised? How have we stopped empathising?
When did we stop reacting? My mind dreams that, one day, something will shock us out of our stupor. Something that will bring us together and raise our voices loud enough to shake the foundations of impunity.
The word is rape
Rape. Read that word three times, and notice how sour your tongue turns, and pay attention to the images your mind conjures.
Can you? Do you feel the imposition? The absolute lack of consent? The decimation of the victims? I don’t like the word “victim,” because the connotations behind this word have shifted and became synonymous with “shame” and “dishonour.”
Don’t imagine “sex” because that’s not what happened. It’s rape. Remember this as you read. Picture it. Let me paint it for you.
Imagine two girls, decked out, excited they have been invited to a party. I am sure we have all been to parties. They trusted the men who invited them. How is trust gained?
Think about this in relation to your life. Now imagine they are there in the hotel room, excited to finally be at the scene.
I have not lost faith in the mobilising power of unity, of the unified call for justice
The air in the room shifts, it’s palpable with malice as they realise something’s wrong.
The girls can see it in their eyes, as they wander wherever they please, as their actions slowly lose any humanness they might have ever possessed, as they drag them off into separate rooms — threatening and coercive.
We are in the room now. What do you see? Need I draw you this scene too? I will if you can stomach it. If your mind can see it. If you can really allow the image to burn into your brain and into the back of your eyelids so you lose sleep from the weight of the oppression in the room, I will paint you this picture too.
Held at gunpoint, a camera aimed, and the girls are assaulted over and over, for probably what must have felt like an unending night.
Can you not see it? Does it not hurt you?
Mind you, you may not dare to shift the burden of this crime. We are not allowed to think that we were not there, that we were not participating in what happened to them.
We are culpable with our indifference, with our non-committal shrugs, with our godforsaken existential dread, with our passive silence.
Ask yourself, if it is worth it to remain quiet. Ask yourself, if you have really done enough to exact justice. Kindly ask yourself, what will be enough, if anything?
When will an example be set? When will the ones committing these crimes be held accountable? For how long are we going to just sit back and remain immobile spectators? When do we decide it’s time? I decide it’s now.
And I don’t hope for others to decide it, I demand that they do, I expect that they will. I have not lost faith in the mobilising power of unity, of the unified call for justice.
For punishment to be given to the rapists. Personally, I vote for castration. Remove from them what they hold most dear — their pride.
Marjiya Baktyer Ahmed is a freelance contributor.
Commoners against rape in Bangladesh
by Farooque Chowdhury | Published: 00:05, May 16,2017
— Sikder Diamond/facebook
DAYS ago, an incident of a rape came out to public light. The victims were two university-students. The incident occurred weeks ago in the capital city of Dhaka. But, the victims dared not to lodge any complaint with the concerned authority as the perpetrators were from rich families. There were complaints of negligence on the part of an official supposed to take action.
But the media instantly took up the issue, and tried its best to bring to light the entire series of incidents: the powerful’s ‘game’ with honour of the ordinary, the threat to hush the act of ‘bravery’, the ploy to not record it officially. The Dhaka press, electronic media and online news outlets are full with reports for the last few days on the developments of the incident. A few of the press reports cited powerful utterances of the powerful son of the rich person: ‘I’ll hack you to death and make the pieces vanish’, a threat to the victims; ‘my father will spend a billion Taka [Bangladesh currency, about 80 Taka equals to a US dollar] to hush the incident’. (Dainik Ittefaq, a leading Bangla daily from Dhaka, May 13, 2017)
At the very onset of the developments, commoners raised their voices over internet-based social media network. There were hundreds of chidings, laments, condemnations, rejections, protests and demands. The commoners were questioning the powerful, the powerful hands of the powerful, the tricky hands of the rich. They were connecting the heinous act and the wealthy. Their questionings spanned from individual rich to the system. They were expressing scepticism about the possibility of proper delivery of fairness.
Within days, the concerned agency had to jump into action, form more than one investigation committees, send a concerned official on leave, apprehend two of the five absconding ‘brave boys’ from a north-eastern city, a few hundred miles from Dhaka.
At the same time, organisations and alliances including a few student organisations and the Gana Jaagaran Mancha organised protest meetings, stand-ins and protest-march at city centres. A few of the slogans in the mobilisations questioned the state, the administration and the society. The voice of the commoners’, yet subdued and unorganised, was felt around.
The violation-incident was preceded and followed by similar incidents around the country. The Dhaka-news-media carries these reports. As for example, in a district near Dhaka, a farm-labourer committed suicide as he failed to found any sympathetic ear to the incident of his young daughter’s dishonour.
An ‘amazing’ aspect within these series of incidents is the ‘strange’ silence of political parties claiming to be progressive, to be pro-people, to be pro-poor! Probably, these organisations did not consider the incident as part of political question. Probably, the issues of safety and honour of citizens are ‘not’ political issues to these organisations. Probably, the issues are to be taken care of by organisations active with social issues, NGO, the organisations pushed by their donors to fill-in political vacuum created by many political non-activities of apparently progressive political organisations, other petty-organisations, and by the so-called civil society, the individuals having no constituency and posing as conscience of the nation. Probably, the apparently progressive political organisations are busy with mechanism of coming-election-equation (?). Probably, it’s beyond comprehension of commoners who find ‘strange’ silence on the part of pro-poor, pro-people, pro-radical change appearing political organisations on major and fundamental issues of life, of economy, society and politics. In this time, traders’ organisations raise and debate aspects related to VAT while it’s difficult to find any serious discussion on the issue by the pro-people, pro-poor appearing political organisations. Examples of similar inactivity by the PPPs are abounding.
But, the signals the society is trying to convey are significant. Politicians and political scientists will look into these, no doubt. Any politician standing for status quo will get annoyed with these signals while any politician standing for radical change will get engaged with serious, persistent and consistent political activities with the aim of reaching the people, with the aim of creating secure and honourable people’s space that helps organising democratic movement.
Rene Dumont, the famous economist from France, was invited to Bangladesh after the country attained independence. He was requested to propose a few ideas about reconstruction of Bangladesh, a country burned, ravaged, destroyed by the occupying forces from Pakistan. One of his observations for a building up a Sonar Bangla, a prosperous Bengal,
was: ensure women’s safe atmosphere for fearless, unhindered movement with full honour.
Today, women constitute a major part of labour force in the country. They are not engaged just with the garments sector; their presence is felt in construction, skin and hide, recycling, and agricultural sectors also. A major portion of micro credit debtors are women while capital invested through MC is mainly in the areas of artisanal and cottage industries; and commodities produced by the MC debtors mainly reach local markets.
Anyone can easily draw a few conclusions based on these aspects, which are important indicators. These aspects are related to capital, market, their development, relations these establish, and development in the society. Anyone can put the issue of women within this perspective, and, can find out the importance of the issue.
Safety of women is not only an issue related to labour, but to capital also. These are known to all, especially to the PPPs. And, all after these, the issue of women’s honour is left to others by the PPPs. It’s really, a time-‘unknown’, when the politically unorganised citizens active in the internet-based social media network easily are connecting the issues of dishonour of women and the rich but the PPPs find no class issue on the question, when millions of poor-women, women industrial workers walk to and fro their workplaces at early-dawn, after dusk, even, at places, at near-midnight. Is the time beyond comprehension of ordinary citizens? Time will answer the question.
Countercurrents.org, May 13. Farooque Chowdhury, writing from Dhaka, authored/edited no other books in English till today other than the following books: Micro Credit: Myth Manufactured (ed.), The Age of Crisis, and What Next? The Great Financial Crisis (ed.).
- See more at:
http://www.newagebd.net/article/156...e-in-bangladesh#sthash.QdPr95nH.vQQ8cJss.dpuf
Police need to learn to deal with sexual assault complaints
- Tribune Editorial
- Published at 09:30 PM May 13, 2017
- Last updated at 07:12 PM May 14, 2017
Our police officers should be required to go through a similar gender sensitivity training
The high-profile rape investigation that is still ongoing has touched off a national nerve.
More than anything, it has started a dialogue that should have started a long time ago, but it is better late than ever.
People are finally talking about practice of victim-blaming, a practice that is commonplace in Bangladesh but hardly ever talked about in a critical way.
Now we come to know that there is an appalling lack of facilities and due process for sexual harassment cases, even after direct instructions from Police Headquarters to set up such facilities at every single police station.
It has been well-known for quite some time now that the police in Bangladesh are generally reluctant to accept rape cases; that victims often find themselves humiliated and harassed further by those who are supposed to help them.
Police Headquarters apparently issued directives to redress the matter but it turns out that police stations across the country have failed to carry out the Headquarters’ directive on setting up separate desks for handling sexual assault or harassment cases. They also recommended that female police officers handle the case, if possible.
Although the directive is a commendable initiative, it only partially addresses the problem. It does not make sure, however, that those entrusted with enforcing the law — our valiant police officers — have the necessary compassion and sensitivity for the victims we are asking them to protect and to serve.
There are gender and inclusive strategists from overseas who are currently working on sensitising the immigration process for immigrant workers to the Middle East and such.
Our police officers should be required to go through a similar gender sensitivity training, for unless their attitude changes, we cannot expect this sort of egregious conduct to change.
Really confused 
.Could be my I.Q level is much lower than yours.
