The ignominy that still haunts Bangladesh

“The country has been freed. Some have become Gazi, others shaheed (martyrs). Many are bestowed with the Bir Uttom or Bir Shrestho awards, while some have become ministers and ambassadors. Everyone is so respected and honoured now," said a rape victim of the 1971 liberation war.

"What about me?” she posed the question years later.

It was Tara Banerjee who asked Nilima Ibrahim this question, as quoted in the book ‘Ami Birangona Bolchhi’ [I, a war heroine, am speaking].

Tara is one of many women who were captured and raped over and over again for months by the Pakistan occupation forces during the war. Even so, she is one among the relatively fortunate ones who later could lead a normal life abroad.

Even then, her ‘fortunate’ existence after being a victim did not include being recognised with her true identity in her own country, a land for which she had lost the most.

One can imagine the state of the less fortunate ones. The war ended in nine months, but another war had just begun for those who were facing social stigma.

The number of rape victims in 1971 was initially said to be 200,000 and some other estimates gave the figure at up to 400,000. UNICEF sees rape as ‘the most intrusive traumatic event’ as psychologists documented during Bangladesh's liberation war. Many of them were killed, many died while aborting unwanted children, many simply slipped into oblivion for the rest of their life. The society did not accept for who they were.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman honoured them as ‘birangona’ (brave woman soldier), and addressed them as ‘maa’. But the enthusiasm about their reinstatement in the new nation gradually disappeared.

Such a change in attitude was manifested through changes of the phrasing in the freedom fighters' certificates. The first certificate mentioned ‘swadhinata sangramer bir/birangona sainik’ (valiant hero/heroine of the liberation war). The word ‘birangona’ was wiped out in the later versions.

The society preferred seeing them as "fallen women.” A post-war struggle for assimilation was required to set perspectives straight.

"I remember a woman who had been violated for nine months, at the end of it, her legs were amputated,” MA Hasan, a freedom fighter and convenor of the War Crimes Facts Finding Committee, Bangladesh, once told the media, referring to how this hapless woman had then been forgotten, reduced to just another statistic.

Most of the families did not take these unfortunate women back. A Polish physician arranged a scholarship for Tara Banerjee. She was eventually married to a Danish journalist. Tara received much honour and respect wherever she went. Her foreign mother-in-law, in particular, was very fond of her and saw her as a strong person, revealed Nilima Ibrahim's book.

When Tara came to visit Bangladesh many years later, she saw her family was doing well with the funds provided by the government for birangonas. This time she was received as the respected wife of a foreigner and a mother.

The existence Tara regained was through the obliteration of her past and her identity. “I have told Niel (husband) that when I die he should not bury me in Bangladesh…I curse the Bangalees for their inferiority, for disrespecting their mothers.”

Shefa was another victim. She married a young man Imam, from a respectable family. Everything was going well, until one day when Shefa asked her husband to control his reckless lifestyle. In his drunken state, Imam said, “How can you ask me to control myself? You have given your body to thousands of men and now you are preaching to me?” His words reflect the common psyche of blaming the victim, rather than ostracising the offender.

Even if some birangonas went back to normal life after the war, they too had to undergo all sorts of trauma, agony and ignominy.

The failure to address the issue of rape with due gravity has served to reinforce the deeply rooted negative attitude towards rape victims.

“Our current society is more conservative than that of 1972 and they do not even hesitate to call the birangonas sinners,” Nilima Ibrahim noted in the preface to the unabridged version (1997) of ‘Ami Birangona Bolchhi’.

Apparently, the horrors of offence and the victims are reminders of the unjust world. People are in denial, burying their heads like an ostrich, denying facts and drawing a safe line to remain cocooned in their comfortable lives.

Even today, those who were raped scarcely seek justice out of fear of social stigma. A Prothom Alo investigation confirms that such criminals are punished in only three per cent cases.

Another Prothom Alo report quoted a rape victim as saying that it took eight hours to file a case as she was confused about where she should register the case. When the police officer told her that she would have to be photographed, she was reluctant. He said, "Why do you feel ashamed to be photographed when you are not ashamed to file a rape case?”

The victim went ahead with her case, supported by her family. At the court, the defence lawyer, in front of many people, accused the woman of being a commercial sex worker.

The same report mentioned another 14-year-old girl who was raped and kept in police custody. His father did not visit her saying he was disgraced.

Similar injustice and negligence is seen in the matter of Bangladeshi women abused by their employers in the Gulf countries. No measures are taken to protect them. The authorities simply continue sending them, viewing them as a source of remittance, oblivious to the abuse that they face.

On 20 January, 81 women returned home after being physically and mentally abused abroad. For many, no relatives showed up at the airport. A number of them gave birth to 'unwanted' children in Bangladesh. Earlier, the expatriates' welfare minister told parliament in 2015 that the allegations of women being repressed abroad were not true. The state has chosen to turn a blind eye to the crimes committed against the women.

French media outlet La-Croix reports that, earlier, the sons of one such Bangladeshi female worker, Sabita, "refused to accept their mother and the social stigma that came with her”, though she went there to earn a living for them. She was compelled to move to Dhaka, where she cooked for day labourers to make a living.

“My father and brother who failed to save me from the criminals were the ones to judge me as impure. What a beautiful social system!” Tara Banerjee said years ago, castigating the society's mindset, a mindset which is still valid for the female expatriate worker, Sabita.

In face of the collective injustice of the state, the sin of the society, in labelling these victims as ‘women whose honour has been ruined', to whom will these victims turn?