To avoid social stigmatisation or fearing further reprisal, most families of rape victims tend to settle the cases with the perpetrators outside the court in mediation of socially influential people or police.
Therefore, police have to give final report discharging the accused instead of pressing charge sheets in the cases. Such cases would be 30% of the total rape cases registered with police stations, according to data available with the police headquarters.
The other cases usually stumble during the trial proceedings for many different reasons including unavailability of witnesses.
Police say around 18,000 cases were filed under the Women and Children Repression (prevention) Act across the country last year. Of those, 4,000 are related to rape of women and children when 23 including 18 children were killed.
Police and prosecution say charge sheets were submitted to the court in around 13,000 cases while final report in the others.
Human rights campaigners say the number of rape incidents did not fall last year despite different government measures. They allege that the number would be much higher in reality than what is available since many incidents are not reported by the victims or their families.
Rights activist Elina Khan blames social reality for the ongoing culture of impunity. “We sometimes see the victims are forced to marry the perpetrators. In the cases of children, their parents try to hide the incidents considering the blemish that may inflict upon them in the future.” Because of such attitude towards the rape victims, all the efforts to eliminate this social menace are hampered, she observes.
Expressing concern over the high rate of settled rape cases outside court, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad President Ayesha Khanom said: “The rape cases should be conducted in a different way. The criminals take the advantage of family-level mediation since many victims’ families withdraw cases to avoid harassment.”
She said sometimes the victims are married off with the rapists while in some other cases the victims given financial aid for so-called rehabilitation. “At times, police mediate the negotiations between the two sides.”
Salma Ali, the chief executive of National Women Lawyers’ Association, says cases are filed in many rape incidents, but the number gradually drops when they go for trial due to lack of witness and settlement outside court.
“Many victims’ families do not find it comfortable to fight the cases at the court because of the trial proceedings.”
She suggested that the print and electronic media highlight the developments related to the trial and punishment more.
Former investigation officer Abdur Razzak Khan said police have nothing to do but submit final report when no one agrees to testify in court. “The number of a crime continues to increase when punishment cannot be meted out,” he said.
“Cases related to child victims are more complicated since the children cannot identify the offence at the very first place. It may take years for them to realise that they were raped or sexually harassed,” Razzak said.
