Promises made by the ruling Awami League in its 2008 election manifesto about curbing violence against women and girls have remained unfulfilled, with the government so far doing very little to effectively implementing the laws and follow the directives given by the judiciary.
“The strictest legal measures will be taken to stop the oppression of women” was a key plank of the party’s manifesto for the last parliamentary polls. The government during its tenure, however, has taken “no strict measure” except enacting a few laws and establishing some offices for combating violence against women.
Rights activists said the “frustratingly slow pace of the judiciary in delivering verdicts” was one of the factors behind rising violence against women (VAW) in the country.
For example, on June 30, the Chittagong Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal 1 sentenced five men to death after 17 years, for being involved in raping and abducting an adolescent girl in Banshkhali Upazila in 1997.
The government has also seemed reluctant to take strict measures against institutions that repeatedly violated the guidelines given by High Court on VAW.
On May 14, 2009, the High Court in a verdict ordered the government to enact a comprehensive law on sexual harassment and asked it to follow the guidelines until the law was enacted.
However, from 2009 to 2013, the government neither enacted a law nor took any strict measure against those bodies that had not followed the guidelines laid down by the judiciary.
The guidelines were laid with an aim to prevent sexual harassment of women and girls with the force of a law within the meaning of Article 111 of the constitution.
Nina Goshwami of Ain O Salish Kendra told the Dhaka Tribune: “It was indeed the government’s duty to let the institutions know about the guidelines and also to pressure them to follow them. It could have filled the gap which we never looked at before. But, unfortunately, the government has not done enough.”
“These directives are aimed at filling up the legislative vacuum in the nature of law declared by the High Court under the mandate and within the meaning of Article 111 of the constitution,” the court ruling said.
“Slow pace of trials is one of the factors that led to the rising of such crimes. Criminals enjoy total impunity because of the slow pace. They tend to think that no matter what they have done, they will continue to rein free,” Nina said.
According to the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, a total of 22,701 incidents of violence against women and girls such as rape, gang rape, killing after rape and attempt to rape, sexual harassment, dowry related violence, trafficking and acid violence took place from January 2009 to March 2013. Some 260 incidents of rape and gang rape took place only in the first three months of 2013.
From 2009 to 2012, a total of 2,129 women including girls were raped. Only from January to March in 2013, some 200 women and girls were raped, 575 women and girls were victims of gang rape. From January to March 2013, 1,220 incidents of VAW were recorded.
Website of the government’s Victim Support Centre, established in 2009 with the help of Police Reform Programme under the United Nations, said since its establishment they had investigated around 400 cases and 1,700 victims had been served in the last 44 months.
Appreciating the government for passing a number of laws including the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act 2010, Nina said it would have been far more helpful if the government could have also ensured “proper and effective implementation of the laws.”
When asked about the spike in violence against women, Tariq-ul-Islam, secretary of the women and children affairs ministry, said awareness against such crimes was necessary. “Our initiatives would not be able to bring changes if people remain unaware.”
