On March 6, police detained a man accused of raping his daughter after her mother died. His daughter complained of him regularly sexually harassing her under various threats.
Previously on February 10, a nine-year-old child was taken to the hilly areas of Sarson road in Chattogram and murdered after rape. Seventeen days before that incident, another child was raped and murdered inside a building in the Bishwa colony of Akbar Shah area in the same district.
In Manoharganj upazila of Cumilla, a 10-year-old was raped and stabbed to death. Various parts of her body bore signs of repeated stabbing.
Humanitarian activists are concerned about the way rapists are not only committing rape, but also mutilating and then cruelly murdering children.
Psychologists think that rape is not a sexual perversion, rather it denotes a deterioration of their moral values. Rapists enjoy torturing their victims.
According to a survey published by Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), from January to March of this year, 187 women and children were raped. Among them, 19 were killed, two committed suicide and 21 others were victims of attempted rape.
Former Executive Director of ASK and humanitarian activist Nur Khan said: "Power has a lot of dimensions. When a rapist uses rape as a tool for revenge, the chances for perversion increase.
"When the rapist feels like he is being unable to express domination by only raping, he commits further physical torture," said Nur. "He enjoys the act."
Nur further said: "Due to the existing system, a rapist is always put at an advantage. That is why he wants to commit the act with the maximum amount of torture."
Coordinator of One-Stop Crisis Centre (OCC) of Dhaka Medical College (DMC) Dr Bilkis Begum said: "Most of the children who have been victims of sexual harassment and rape who come to OCC bear signs of perversion.
"Some of them come with mutilated organs," continued Dr Bilkis. "The others have indications of severe physical injuries. It is hard to figure out the reason behind such brutal acts. "
Dr Bilkis added that such experiences at a young age would cast negativity throughout a child's whole life.
While speaking on the topic of the perverted nature of the rapes, psychologist Mekhla Sarkar said: "Those who commit rape lack in morality. Rape is not a result of mental perversion, it is a result of moral deficiency."
She continued: "Rapists have personality disorders. They enjoy exacting vengeance on others. Perhaps they display this mentality in other places as well, but we do not know about it."
Mekhla added that there everyone has a positive and negative side to them. Instead of controlling it, rapists nurture the negative side, and gets bolder as they get away without punishment.
"Those who possess this kind of mentality wants to let other people know what they are capable of," said Mekhla. "They get personal satisfaction when others talk about their acts.
"Their insecurities and possibilities of undergoing physical abuse give them a warped definition of sexuality," she said.
This article was first published on banglatribune.com
