“When I wanted to drink water, they served me urine in a coconut shell.” In the International Crimes Research Foundation’s interview, Birangona Najma Begum burst into tears while recalling her imprisonment at the Pakistani military torture cell.
The word Birangona (War Heroine) honours the women and girls who were subjected to sexual violence by the Pakistani army and its local collaborators, the razakars, during the 1971 Liberation War for the independence of Bangladesh.
Countless women experienced such inhumane and tragic events, yet only 455 are officially recognized as Birangonas, according to BBC News. This enormous discrepancy reflects not only bureaucratic failures but also the country’s long-standing hesitation to confront the full scale of wartime sexual violence.
During the war, most of the rape cases were committed by the Pakistani army at the site of attack, while others occurred at army base camps and other locations. Birangonas were kept as prisoners until the war ended. Many of them died either during the assaults or later in torture cells.
Birangona Monowara Begum shared her tragic segment of life with The Daily Star: “In 1971, I was in class 7. The Pakistani army forcefully took me to a torture cell where they kept me for several months with other girls. Countless Pakistani soldiers raped me. I still have biting marks on my back and shoulder.”
Stories such as hers make clear that the atrocities were not isolated incidents, but part of a systematic effort to undermine the nation’s fight for liberation. Leesa Gazi, a Bangladeshi-born British writer, conducted an open discussion session with Birangonas, where one of them said that when Pakistani soldiers came to their house to take her sister, her newborn nephew was sleeping on his mother’s lap.
Pakistani soldiers threw the baby on the floor and took her with them. As they left the house, they kidnapped the narrator of this incident, who had been hiding behind the door. These testimonies collectively show that brutality was not just physical but also passed down through generations, leaving scars that families still bear today.
Three months after the war ended, the government established the National Board of the Bangladesh Women's Rehabilitation Program to help self-reliant Birangonas. According to The New York Times report titled Dacca Raising the Status of Women While Aiding Rape Victims, among the lakhs of Birangonas, only 1,500 had applied for training at that time.
The writer Robert Trumbull stated that the primary reason was that most of the Birangona came from conservative families and never left their courtyards alone. Although the rehabilitation program was initiated with support from international NGOs, after three years, all the Birangonas were evicted from the centre when political power shifted.
Those who went back to their homes faced devastating trauma caused by society, and many of them committed suicide. The rest lived under immense pressure from their surroundings. Maleka Khan (Former Secretary of the Bangladesh Girl Guides Association), who worked to promote the well-being of the rape victims, described the psychological condition of Birangonas.
She said, “They could not say anything at that time. They had become mute. It took a long time to become normal and start talking. They had a lot of anger towards themselves. They inflicted pain on themselves.”
Her account underscores how the lack of long-term institutional support deepened their wounds rather than healing them.
The commonly known number of rape cases is 200,000, which is based on a skimpy calculation derived from the missing women’s records at police stations throughout the country in those days. The latest report titled Justice to Biranganas and International Accountability by Parikshit Chowdhury found that the number of known rape victim cases in 1971 is vague.
The writer's argument was grounded in evidence such as the significant number of post-war abortions (approximately 400,000) and the killings of rape victims (over 100,000). Geoffrey Davis was an Australian doctor who came to Bangladesh right after the victory in 1972 to serve abused female victims and provide abortion services.
In his diary, The Changing Face of Genocide, Geoffrey estimated that 400,000 to 430,000 women in total suffered as victims of the Liberation War. These staggering figures indicate that wartime sexual violence was not an unfortunate side-effect of conflict; it was a deliberate strategy of terror and domination.
Nothing reveals the moral collapse of a military more starkly than its use of rape as a calculated weapon of war. Tikka Khan (then Pakistan’s military commander) ordered the impregnation of as many women as possible with “blood from the west”. Unfortunately, groups of local people, known as razakars, from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), helped the Pakistani army.
Abid Hussain, correspondent of Al Jazeera in Islamabad, wrote that their military created the razakar force with the local support in East Pakistan to run their barbaric killing mission along with rape. This collaboration expanded the violence in every direction, corroding the fabric of society as those once considered neighbours became instruments of their own community’s ruin.
The same cruelty happened in another part of the world by the Japanese military during World War II. The United Nations estimates that 200,000 girls and women were seized from Korea, the Netherlands, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries to join Japan's military sexual slavery program. These abused women and girls are termed as Comfort Women.
However, most of the women were from Korea. Late Kim Bok-dong, one of the Comfort Women from South Korea, described her horrific daily activities in sexual slavery, “They (Japanese soldiers) stood in queues. If there’s a delay, the guy next in line starts banging on the door.” Post-war damage investigations and trials of Japan’s war archives revealed historical information about how the Japanese army at the time enslaved women and opened comfort stations, similar to torture cells of the Pakistani military.
Ex-Japanese soldier Yasuji Kaneko's confession about Comfort Women, “I am very ashamed to confess that the lives of the ‘Comfort Women’ were horrible. Awful acts like rape, including gang rape, took place daily. The Japanese government tries to deny it, but facts are facts.”
Drawing parallels between these atrocities emphasizes that sexual violence in war is a global issue, yet commitment to justice differs significantly across nations.
In tribute to the devotion of those death-defying souls, South Koreans have been establishing the Statue of Peace (a sculpture of a young girl symbolizing Comfort Women) in many critical public places at home and overseas, including New Jersey, California, Australia, Italy, Germany, and beyond.
But on the other side of the world, our Birangona Nurun Nahar had to change her name to Rina Begum in fear of losing social reverence. South Korean parents take their children to the homes of Comfort Women to hear about the sacrifices they made for the country. But Champa, a mother of three, was divorced because she was the daughter of a Birangona. Comfort Women in Korea are respected and supported by the government to ensure their health and welfare. On the other hand, Birangona Rahela lived in a slum beside a bus stand till her final breath. This stark contrast reveals how national memory and state responsibility shape the fate of war survivors long after the gunfire ceases.
As all the previous ruling political parties could not use this episode of the Liberation War as a trump card, they simply avoided addressing this segment. With Bangladesh now under an apolitical administration, we have a rare window to speak with clarity and conviction, and to lay the groundwork for reforms that future political governments can uphold, strengthen, and see through to completion.
Yes, it is not possible to accomplish justice in one night. South Korea has been demanding justice for its Comfort Women since 1991. The government of Japan has not been held accountable for its actions to date. What motivates South Koreans to fight tirelessly for justice for their women? They know defeat lies only in giving up.
We must awaken our collective conscience to the rights of our Birangona, while simultaneously demanding an official apology from Pakistan for its historic human rights violations and war crimes.
The first step can be raising public awareness through photo gallery exhibitions of our war heroines in public places, and by naming academic buildings after Birangonas. Textbooks should also be revised to include this tragic chapter of our history, so that the current generation is aware of the price our predecessors paid for independence. If we fail to preserve their stories now, future generations may never grasp the depth of sacrifice that shaped this nation.
Bangladesh is celebrating Victory Day tomorrow. Yet our war heroines have still not received their ‘freedom’. These sacred souls, who should be soaring across the sky of this liberated land with wings of dignity, remain trapped in a cage of hatred, dread, and sorrow.
Time is running out. If we fail to act now, the last of the Birangonas will escape to heaven, their eyes filled with tears, leaving behind a nation burdened with eternal ingratitude.
We must decide: Will we let them leave this world unseen and unheard, or will we finally rise to give them the honor that history owes them?
Faizur Rahman Khandaker is a human rights activist.
