A woman in Dhaka told this correspondent that the process of selling a piece of land belonging to her father is underway. The woman’s husband asked her to give a major part of the money after selling the land. Due to rift on this issue, the husband beat the woman with a stick in the last week of July.
A 2020 study titled ‘Criminal Justice System Status Quo in Bangladesh and Recommendations for Domestic Violence Victims’ revealed that 87 percent of women in Bangladesh faced domestic violence – physical, mental, economic or sexual.
Another study in the same year titled ‘Hidden sexual assault in Bangladesh’ found that 60 per cent of school and college going girls in the country had experienced rape or sexual violence at some stage of their lives by relatives, neighbours, classmates or a teacher. They become victims. However, despite suffering, 80 percent of wealthy respondents and 70 percent of middle- and lower-class victims did not report to the police.
An unpublished study in collaboration with the Dhaka Metropolitan Police has shown that rape incidents are caused by socio-economic context, fraud and greed for a better life.
Muhammad Umar Farooq, chairman of the department of criminology and police science at Mawlana Bhashani University of Science and Technology, led all three studies. She said women do not want to complain because of the fear of more harassment in society and the lack of effective safeguards in the legal framework. The rate of verdict in rape cases is less than 4 percent. Many cases are dismissed due to weaknesses in investigation and case management. The excuse of 10 percent fake cases is used as a reference to weaken the remaining 90 percent cases. All these factors encourage the miscreants more.
The mother of the woman who was set ablaze by her husband told Prothom Alo on 31 August, “I will not send my daughter to that house. My daughter’s dowry is 800,000 taka. I told him that I do not need money. Let my daughter live.”