Narippokkho is a front-ranking women’s organization in Bangladesh, fighting for the rights of women and other marginalized groups since its inception in 1983. Since 2011, this organization has been working with and supporting the women heroes of Bangladesh’s Liberation War, our Birangona sisters (who have recently been recognized and received special rights as the Women Freedom Fighters of 1971).
It bears reiteration that all wars intend to wound a nation collectively. The battlefield, however, is a highly gendered space. Mass rapes are committed as a tactical tool of ethnic cleansing. The issues surrounding war rape need to be identified and voiced by women who have lived through it and survived long enough to be able to speak their truth. The world also owes it to each one of them, starting from the oldest living survivors to those whose histories are more recent.
The Mukwege Foundation was founded by the recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, DRC gynaecologist Dennis Mukwege. That year, the Prize was awarded jointly to him and Nadia Murad, the Yazidi survivor of rape at the hands of IS, for their work with survivors of rape during armed conflict.
Mukwege’s prize was based on his work treating victims of rape by armed militia from the Congos and neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda. He recognizes that war rape survivors need to be heard; they need to tell their own histories in their own voices, they need to connect with others to heal, and to ultimately find resolution through a process of reparations.
An honest and open sharing of experiences and views is the only humane and democratic way to reach an understanding on the form and kind of recompense that would balance the scales in a meaningful way. It would also guide us to a clearer view of the battlefield, so we can, together, start formulating ways to bring an end to the practice. The voices of our elderly Birangona sisters deserve to be heard.
Naripokkho's involvement with our war heroines led British Bangladeshi writer and filmmaker Leesa Gazi and her organisation Komola Collective to partner with us in response to the Mukwege Foundation's invitation to take two of our Birangona sisters to their Global Retreat for women survivors of wartime rape in 2018.
After two years of the pandemic, we received an invitation again to participate in the Global Retreat scheduled to be held in The Netherlands from May 31 to June 3, 2022. Our Birangona sisters, Mosammat Jilekha Khatun (Mymensingh) and Mosammat Meherjan Begum (Kurigram), along with Naripokkho member Mosammat Naznin Sultana, prepared all their travel documents, including an all-expenses covered letter of invitation, and submitted their visa applications several weeks ago.
The Swedish Embassy in Dhaka processes visa applications for the Netherlands. In a shocking development, their visas were denied. It has also been surprising that Swedish visa officers pay little heed to an invitation extended by a Nobel Laureate, that too, to living survivors of war rape from Bangladesh so they can attend the Retreat in The Netherlands, the very country where war criminals are brought to trial.
It is also worth noting that Dennis Mukwege has received other prestigious awards from highly respected Swedish institutions, such as the Olof Palme Award 2008. Denying Bangladesh war heroines their rightful presence in this Retreat is not only showing immense disrespect towards Bangladeshi women survivors of wartime rape, it also shows Swedish officials in Dhaka have little respect for their own institutions that the rest of the world deem important for the growth and progress of humanity.
The Swedish Embassy in Dhaka has, in the meantime, sent an explanation for denying them visas for entry to the Netherlands. It says the applicants did not furnish enough evidence showing the purpose of their visit, or documents that would support their intention of leaving the Schengen member state -- such as gainful employment here, family ties etc -- upon the expiry of their purported period of stay.
The Swedish visa consuls surely understand they were invited to the Hague by the Mukwege Foundation to attend a global retreat for survivors of rape in armed conflicts. It is surprising they expect our elderly Birangona sisters to furnish employment documents. To say the least, they both have supported themselves and their children their entire lives through back-breaking work in the informal labour sector, but no papers of past employment, social security numbers etc can be conjured up to prove any of this, as no such documents exist -- that is not how rural societies work in this part of the world.
The visa form does not ask about family members who are not also travelling. Both our Birangona sisters have family, children, grandchildren, and households with farmyard animals and pets they are very attached to. They both belong in family-centred rural agrarian communities, where they receive support despite the general poverty that limits opportunities and lowers aspirations. They have deep roots set through a lifetime of sheer existence.
At their age, after all they have lived through, this imaginary justification adds further insult to injury.
We believe the Swedish Visa Consul responsible for this predicament owes our Birangona sisters an immediate and unequivocal apology for making baseless assumptions about their lives, in part due to their focus on economic class, and in part due to their limited grasp of the social and cultural context in which people are placed here. Moreover, Naripokkho has represented Bangladesh before at this very event, and obviously all participants returned within the allocated entry-exit dates. There is no reason to assume otherwise this time round.
The Hague should also explain why it has given the authority over its borders to the visa officers of another country with no guideline as to how to judge each application on its own merit rather than base it on a list of check-boxes that need to be filled in on a yes/no basis. Since issuing a Schengen visa adheres to strict standards, maybe it is better for The Hague to suggest moving such conferences to countries that are more open and friendly to all invitees, instead of open only to people from within the region or from rich, developed countries.
Safia Azim is a freelance contributor.
