45pc victims of rape, gang rape and murder after rape, are children

The seven-year-old girl’s parents would leave her at home to go to work every day. Her father worked at a plastic factory and mother was an ayah at a school. Her grandmother lived close by and would drop in at the small tin roofed house off and on in between her work.

On the evening of 25 October, the girl’s grandmother when to check on her and found the door closed. After she knocked and called out for some time, the door opened and a neighoubour emerged and left. She entered to find the little girl huddled in fear, weeping.

The grandmother instantly understood what had happened and the little girl was rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital’s One-Stop Crisis Centre (OCC). The father later filed a rape case with the Lalbagh police station. The police soon arrested the perpetrator.

The child’s father told Prothom Alo that neighbor Rajjab Talukdar took advantage of their being away at work the entire day. His daughter had become strangely silent now, he said. She had undergone medical treatment and had considerably recovered physically, but how could the harm be undone? He called for the severest punishment of the accused.

In the first 10 months of this year, from January to October, there have been 525 cases filed in 50 police stations of the capital city, for rape, gang rape and murder after rape. Almost half of the cases (235) were for the rape of girl children.

Prothom Alo investigations revealed that 45 per cent of the victims were children and young girls between the ages of 3 to 18. Prothom Alo scrutinised details of 186 of the 525 rapes cases. It was seen that a large number of the victims had been tricked. Around 64 per cent of the women (rape and gang rape victims) had been lured by promises of love and marriage. The women, young girls and children who were victims of rape were all more or less of the same economic and social bracket. In most incidents, the victims and the perpetrators were both of the lower income group.

Prothom Alo spoke to five former and present public prosecutors of Dhaka’s Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal, concerning the facts revealed in the investigations. They also confirmed from their experience that a large percentage of the victims were children and young girls from low income families. The accused were also, to a large extent, of the low income group.

Legal counsel of Dhaka Medical College’s One-Stop Crisis Centre, Fahmida Akhter, agreed with the public prosecutors’ observations in this regard. This lawyer, who has long being providing legal support to rape victims in court, told Prothom Alo that the financially disadvantaged were often trapped in various ways. The rapists would lure the children aside with chocolates, ice cream and money. And these persons were known to the children or lived nearby.

The same picture had emerged in a detailed investigation carried out by Prothom Alo of 52 cases in 2018. Of the victims, 46 were women of poor families, homeless, slum dwellers, domestic help, working women and garment factory workers. Prothom Alo published the investigative report in six parts, covering six types of crimes under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, including rape, from 8 March to 23 May 2018. The investigation revealed that in 97 per cent of the cases, the accused were not punished.

MA Bari had been the public prosecutor for the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal for over a decade. Speaking to Prothom Alo, he said that in most instances, it is people who stay nearby that commit rape. When low-income parents go to work, their children are at risk.

On 6 March this year, a seven-year old mentally challenged child in Kamrangirchar was raped. Her mother would sell ‘pitha’ (rice cakes) to run the family. After selling ‘pitha’ during the day on 6 March, she returned home at 10:00pm to find her daughter missing. She later found her near a junk shop in Islamnagar of Kamrangirchar. She had been raped. The accused who was arrested was a 40-year-old man. He is in jail.

On 18 October, also in Kamrangirchar, a 12-year-old girl was raped. Her mother filed a case against five persons. The police have arrested four of them. On 20 October they made confessional statements in court.

Kazi Wajed Ali, who has been the officer-in-charge (OC) at four police stations in Dhaka, presently the OC of Pallabi police station, told Prothom Alo it was the children and young girls of low income families who were mostly victims of rape. The accused were also of low income groups, mostly labourers.

In the investigations of rape cases from January to March this year, it was noted that rape cases in the capital city had dropped in the last week of March. A general holiday had been enforced from 26 Mach till 30 May to control the spread of coronavirus. There were 34 rape cases filed in 50 of the city’s police station in this time of April and May. The cases went up again with the end of the general holiday. There were 64 cases in June and 93 in October.

A student of a private college in Dhaka on 15 February filed a rape case at the Jatrabari police station. She stated that she had met a young man five years ago and they got into a relationship. The boy had promised to marry her and then raped her. A similar case was filed at Sher-e-Bangla Nagar police station on 3 October by a student of a private university in the city. She said she had got into a relationship with a boy she met through Facebook. On 17 September they met in a hotel room where he mixed drugs with her soft drink, raped her, recording the entire incident on video. He later threatened spread the video.

Public prosecutor of Dhaka’s Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-3, Mahmuda Akhter, told Prothom Alo that in most of the rape cases in Dhaka, romantic relationships, jobs and marriage were used as bait. And nowadays, the perpetrators also record the incidents on video, extracting money by threatening to make the videos public.

A 10th grader of Pallabi was looking for a job along with her studies. She received a call on her mobile on 15 October this year. She was told that they were recruiting staff for a buying house and she could continue her studies while working there too. On 16 October she unsuspectingly went for an interview to an office where she was given a soft drink laced with sedatives. She was raped. The police had arrested the person accused in the case.

The girl’s father is a vegetable vendor. He told Prothom Alo that his daughter has broken down mentally. She has lost interest in everything. He is concerned about her future.

Experts say that the numbers of rape incidents are not decreasing because the accused get away without any punishment. Senior criminal lawyer Arfan Uddin Khan, speaking to Prothom Alo, said that the rate of punishment in rape cases is extremely low. He asked, if an accused is not punished even after committing rape and is released, what message does that convey? It conveys that there is no punishment for rape. In most cases, punishment of the accused is not ensured.

The government amended the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, including death sentence as the highest punishment for rape. The law went into effect from 13 October. Since then, according to reports in the print edition of Prothom Alo, from 14 October to 13 November, 183 persons were victims of rape in 171 incidents. This was 58 per cent more than in the previous month.

Professor of sociology at Dhaka University, Nehal Karim, told Prothom Alo, even if persons of the upper social class are victims of rape, they often do not want to file charges. They compromise and cover up the incident in fear of social humiliation. Poor people file rape cases with the police station and at court, but the families are often pressurised to finally drop charges. As a result, the criminals are let off free and rape incidents continue.

* This report appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir