Bangladesh Battles Male Attitudes Behind Sexual Crimes

By Cat Barton

When Aleya Akhter turned down a proposal of marriage, her enraged suitor turned up at her family’s Dhaka apartment, grabbed the Bangladeshi teenager, poured petrol on her and lit a match.

Aleya, 18, sustained burns to 70 percent of her body and died after six days in intensive care, becoming one of dozens of teenage girls to be killed or have committed suicide in Bangladesh in 2010 because of sexual harassment.

“A huge fire ball engulfed her and she was screaming, running around and trying to put out the fire, but she couldn’t — everything except her face was burned,” said Aleya’s aunt Rajia Begum, 40, who witnessed the attack.

“The man started asking her to marry him in April 2010; she was dead by May 26.

She was scared of him — we all were. We didn’t go to the police at first as he warned us not to,” she added.

“When she told him she wouldn’t marry him, he said ‘I’ll make sure you don’t marry anyone else’”.

A string of teenage suicides — at least 22 in 2010 — and dozens of high-profile attacks on teenage girls have highlighted Bangladesh’s sexual bullying problem.

Eve-teasing — the south Asian term for sexual harassment — is an everyday reality in Bangladesh, but it also causes public outrage in a country that regards itself as more progressive than other Muslim nations such as Pakistan.

“We recently have seen a lot of eve-teasing and teenagers committing suicide and the government is aware of this,” Bangladesh’s Women and Children Affairs Minister Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury said.

Plain-clothed policemen have been on patrol outside top girls’ schools in Dhaka, and female police officers have gone undercover inside school grounds across the country — arresting more than 500 bullies so far.

But experts say Bangladeshi teenage girls still have no real protection from bullies or stalkers, and that deep-rooted traditional attitudes mean violent crimes against women are easy to carry out and often go unpunished.

The family and society together blame girls if they’re being harassed. The family would tell the girl, ‘you laugh too much’. They would tell her to lower her head when she’s walking to school. Some girls even chose suicide as they feel so unsafe. The parents don’t listen to their daughters. Instead they accuse her of being responsible for the harassment.

Even if parents do listen, they may not be able to help, with men who try to intervene and prevent bullying often being attacked themselves.

The father of one bullying victim committed suicide and another recently had a stroke — allegedly because he was terrified his daughter’s suicide would be reported in newspapers.

Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation of 146 million, remains a deeply patriarchal society, and Women’s Minister Chaudhury said the balance of responsibility between the genders had to change. “I think there is a gradual change in this, and girls are now coming out —they’re raising their voices against it and this is a good thing,” she said. For Chaudhury, 2010’s spike in reported instances of female sexual harassment or bullying is, to some extent, a sign of how successful Bangladesh has been at getting girls into schools and women into the workforce.

“Our females are in school and they are employed, so when they are facing this problem they are coming out with it. Eve-teasing has always happened, but it was not reported as much before,” she said.

But a fundamental transformation in how men treat women looks a distant dream.

At the moment, “perpetrators are being released too easily. If a perpetrator is arrested and the next day he gets bail, the girl is again unsafe and the family is also in danger.

Aleya’s family have decided to press charges and, despite attempts at intimidation by her attacker’s family, say they will not give up until they get justice.

“When we were in the hospital, she kept saying — I want the people who did this to me to hang,” said her aunt. “Her attacker had money and good connections to the police. We are poor and scared. After we filed a complaint, we started getting anonymous phone calls telling us to drop it, but we never will,” she said.

Aleya’s alleged attacker and one of his accomplices are currently in prison, and police say the case against them is progressing. Another accomplice was never caught, the family said.

Bangladeshi girls get little respect in many families, and often boys grow up believing girls are not human beings but sexual objects.

Traditional attitudes and new technology like mobile phones have combined to change how young people interact and leaving victims, parents and the authorities struggling to respond.

Common Left Manifesto for Freedom, Democracy and Self-Rule

Let us not be pawns in the deadly game of chess played by the two equally blood-drenched, chauvinist representative of Global Capitalism: So, once again, at the cost of billions of public funds, we have to face an election. Two equally bloody, corrupt and parasitic Capitalist Alliances have come forward for the contest.

This election campaign is going to be a bitter and deadly fight between two equally reactionary camps of the ruling class as to who is going to feast on the blood of the nation, and that of the proletariat and all exploited and all oppressed classes and nationalities and communities, and exercise chauvinist oppressive dictatorship over the people. Let us not become mere pawns in a deadly game of chess played by two rival camps of the very same capitalist ruling class.

Let us hold this State and this ruling class accountable for the crimes willfully committed against the people and against humanity.

Let us do so as a basis to mobilize mass protest and agitation against the prevailing capitalist political order which represents the interests of global capitalism, by building resistance and revolutionary struggle to defeat the militarist-chauvinist agenda represented by the ruling class candidates.

The continued incarceration of the people in parts of the country, including elderly, children, wounded, and sick, under sub-human conditions, is a damned indictment of the prevailing neo-colonial capitalist State and political order. Along with the gross criminal violations of human rights, these violations constitute continued crimes against humanity.

We demand the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners.

We demand that all draconian fascist legislations be rescinded.

We demand the dismantling of the supremacist comprador capitalist state, which functions as an agent of global capital, as a basis for granting the democratic freedom of the exploited and oppressed masses, including the right of national self-determination of the people so that they may enjoy their right to live with dignity, equality, autonomy, security and democratic freedom.

End to the pillage of national capital and the plunder of natural resources and violation of people’s sovereignty: For a State that respects people’s sovereignty based on sharing power on the principle of self-rule.

The Presidency presently is serving a particular agenda. The open economic policy needed such a strong political head. If the multi national corporation (MNC) system is to come in and play the important central role expected of them, it was necessary to give all the facilities requested by them. Thus it was introduced as an instrument to support the MNC system. When they need any agreement either economic or security or any other it will be easy to go through an executive head, with the ministries of Defense and Finance than through parliament with all the obstacles of transparency and criticism. Information will be confined to secretaries and advisers to the president and decisions can be arrived at, without delay.

So it was brought in to facilitate international moneylenders and plunderers of global capitalism.

Global capitalism is the modern version of imperialism. It integrates the entire MNC system with the IMF, WB and the WTO as management organs.

Now everyone is clamoring for the removal of this tree of vultures, but once they get elected they hold on to it not necessarily due to the greed for power, but because of international pressure of the global masters.

Replace the strategies of global capitalism that bring destruction to domestic production of food and commodities, and unemployment, poverty and disease, with a human centered, ecologically sustainable path of development.

Today, the global capitalist system is in disarray facing an acute economic crisis. All attempts to put the system into order have not been sufficient so far. Still to come is a food crisis that could put a large part of humanity into hunger and death. There is an energy crisis and a threat to the global environment so it is vital for us to seriously consider developing our food production, particularly wheat and rice and milk. If we do not turn towards a nature oriented, environmentalist approach we may be too late.

In every continent, people’s forces are rising up in resistance and revolution against the system desiring freedom, democracy and self-rule. We too must honor our proletarian internationalist responsibilities. In this decisive conjuncture, let us join forces with the people of the world and rise to the stage of history.

In the past three decades, the so-called development projects have created poverty and alienation while rich became richer. While local industrialist and producer were marginalized a large section of the population was thrown out as human dust unconnected to the system. The plight of women and children, particularly in slums and in rural areas became most miserable. Patriarchy combined with militarization and the rise of under world reduced most women to the level of domestic slaves. Struggle of youth and the proletariat was used to intensify the repression in all sectors. The media repression was so bad many media people ran away from the country to escape death.

But the world tendency is against this global system working on the imperative of super profit. The global capitalist system based on unbridled search of super profit should be displaced. This should be done on the basis of giving priority to meeting the basic needs of the people through a system of collective property shared by workers, peasants and all oppressed people, where their revolutionary unity, solidarity and liberation shall be secured.

Here, we should address the needs and aspirations of progressive forces who find inspiration and sustenance.

Freedom from poverty, indebtedness, unemployment, degradation is the need of the hour. There are calls to end corruption, fraud, plunder of resources and national capital. Basic daily wage and minimum monthly salary must be paid to all. Vocational and livelihood for all must be provided to all.

While denying the vast majority of toiling, suffering people of their right to a life free of poverty, indebtedness, misery and degradation, the ruling class used the open economy to amass vast fortunes, build empires of private profit and plunder, and to waste public funds, through naked corruption.

Wages and salaries of all government and private sector workers should be increased in accordance with the present cost of living index.

The just grievances of workers, graduates and students should be addressed democratically and with justice, as opposed to erecting barricades, baton charging, showering tear gas, arresting and violently suppressing their human and democratic rights. This regime is on trial for unleashing the very same armed forces that brutally decimated the previous uprisings and its leadership. So much for the ‘patriotism’ of these chauvinist candidates.

How can there be democracy in a land, which is kept divided by nationality and religion? Even now, the two agents of the global system clamor for democracy without any hint of pulling the masses together in national unity. Both worked together to crush the uprisings during their respective tenures that were waged ferociously to defend the autonomy of their people. Both were singing and dancing with their masters about the victory until the workers started the battle in the work places. The strikes pushed them in to a fresh debate and they emerged as a two headed serpent to face the people.

Now they have come out in elections united in policy but divided in camouflage. Let us get together and give a real blow to both of them, and move forward for a united country to face the dictates of global capital.

Let us build the strength to raise our vision of a world without domination, exploitation, oppression and war!

Let us unite our forces across divided boundaries.

Let us march forward towards a people’s democratic state governed by people’s assemblies representing the workers, peasants and all oppressed classes, nationalities and communities. This shall embody the unity and solidarity of the country in the form of a People’s Republic that shall enshrine freedom and democracy.

Religion is Becoming Stronger in India & Pakistan

In 19th century Europe, industrialisation, and the mass migrations from farms and villages to the towns and cities, went hand in hand with the death of God: organised religion began to decline, and the Church and state moved further and further apart.

The experience of South Asia has been more or less the reverse of this.

All over the subcontinent faith has been growing and religion becoming stronger as the region has reinvented itself in different ways over the last twenty years.

This is at least as much true of India as it is of Pakistan and Sri Lanka. During the early 20th century, educated, urban Hindu reformers moved away from ritualised expressions of faith in favour of a more philosophical Hinduism, while Nehru and Ambedkar constitutionally formed India as a model secular state.

This was to be a state where, in Nehru’s celebrated words, dams would be the new temples. But over the last two decades, just as India has freed itself from the shackles of Nehruvian socialism, in many ways, it has also gone a long way to try and shake off Nehruvian secularism.

by William Dalrymple

Ruling Classes to Blame for the Spate of Violence in South Asia

Several events which have taken place in recent weeks remind us of the deepening of the crises in the region. In Bangladesh in the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) 55 officers, seven civilians including two officers’ wives, were killed by lower ranking officers. Five other senior officers are still missing. Those who were killed include the Major General of the BDR, two Brigadier Generals, over a dozen colonels, several lieutenant colonels, captains, majors and two soldiers. The exact reason for this revolt has not yet been revealed.

In Sri Lankathe conflict between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government has been continuing with what is being referred to as the final assault which has resulted in the deaths of large numbers of persons. Civilian casualty figures are being put at 2,000, 700 of which were children. About 200,000 civilians are caught between the fighting forces and they are being targeted both by the LTTE, which is preventing them from leaving and also by the Sri Lankan military which is continuing its assault on the LTTE. Despite of many interventions there is no significant change regarding this situation.

In Pakistan the Sri Lankan cricket team was targeted by a terrorist group consisting of about 12 persons who were heavily armed and seven policemen escorting the team were killed during the assault. The cricketers suffered minor injuries and were returned to Sri Lanka. Official Pakistani sources claimed that it may have been caused by the same terrorist group that carried out the attacks in Mumbai which occurred between the 26th and 29th November, 2008. At least 173 people were killed and 308 wounded.

None of these incidents were isolated incidents. They are in fact, merely a manifestation of an ongoing state of instability and violence prevailing in the south Asian region. The BDR revolt took place shortly after a new government was elected in Bangladesh with an absolute majority in parliament. This came after a long period of instability where the military has begun to play the role of arbiter in Bangladeshi politics. It was a period in which a large number of extrajudicial killings took place. Over 500,000 persons were arrested for political reasons, and the law of the country was suspended, particularly in matters relating to the liberty of individuals such as arrest and detentions, conditions of bail and the like. Virtually, the administration of justice has been brought to a standstill. In that background the corruption for which Bangladesh is known reached new heights, particularly the wealthier businessmen were subjected to various harassments for claiming large sums of money from them. The average citizen is subjected to corruption at all levels from admissions to hospitals, schools and on the occasions of arrest or detention of any family members.

Sri Lanka’s continuing crisis has been preceded by about 40 years of instability beginning with a minor insurrection in the south in 1971 by a group known as Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Large scale killing was a part of the military campaign of the time in the south, north and the east. The JVP and the LTTE also relied on armed rebellion. In the face of such large scale killings, the arrest of large numbers of persons, the maintenance of illegal detention camps, the use of torture and the suppression of freedom of expression and assembly became the normal way of life in the country. Such unstable times provide enormous opportunities for corruption. The corruption has spread so wildly in the Sri Lankan police service that there are constant harassments of people throughout the country by the utilisation of the powers of arrest and detention for the purpose of monetary enrichment of the officers of the local police stations. No complaint mechanism can expect to be successful in the midst of the resistance that naturally arises within a system that is so corrupt. The political system itself has been so corrupt that any attempt to be critical of any politician on this score carries the possibility of assassination. While some journalists have been killed many others have fled the country. The lawyers too, are under attack. Under these circumstances the institutions of the administration of justice have hardly any space to operate from.

The recent incident in Pakistan is comparatively a small incident when compared with the constant state of violence that has prevailed in the country for many decades. The global war on terror has intensified this state of violence. The possibility of bomb attacks in any part of the country has become part of normal life. Meanwhile, forced disappearances continue to occur and the past disappearances are not being investigated. There are reports of 52 torture cells operated by the military and even the keeping of women as sex slaves. In traditional systems such as Jirga, extrajudicial forms of punishments such as burying people alive and the killing of persons for what are seen as sexual transgressions also continue. The recent judgment by the Supreme Court regarding some cases concerning Nawaz Sharif indicates the continuity of the traditions of political bias on the part of the higher judiciary. The former chief justice, Iftekhar Choudhry, was not reinstated despite of promises by all political parties to do so. The lawyers are battling hard against this system. However, there is resistance on the part of the government and the military to grant any space for the operation of the rule of law. Under these circumstances corruption prevails everywhere and the policing system also suffers from the endemic practices of corruption and the control of powerful elements. The normal process of criminal justice remains virtually suspended.

In India too, in many parts of the country there is hardly any rule of law. Of particular concern are those states such as Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland. What the Mumbai attack also demonstrated was the sheer incapacity of the policing system to provide the services which are normally expected within a rule of law system. The absence of a credible corruption control system affects Indian bureaucracy as a whole and the policing system in particular. Public perceptions of corruption and inefficiency keep the population alienated from the policing system. The government has not demonstrated any form of political will to undertake the necessary reforms in order to upgrade its policing system to meet the demands of the population. The lack of political will in this regard may be due to powerful pressures that see the strengthening of a rationally functioning policing system as a threat to their interests. All classes of persons, particularly those of the less privileged classes and castes see the police as a severely oppressive force.

Despite of the ever-increasing instability there are no attempts in any of the countries mentioned above to reverse this situation and create a situation of greater stability. The way of dealing with violence that is pursued in all these countries is to suspend the operation of normal laws even more despite of the fact that suspension of the normal laws increases corruption and the oppression of all the people even further. The reliance of Special Forces which include paramilitary and underground elements in what is called anti terrorism, in fact, further terrorizes the entire society. The giving of extraordinary powers to the military, paramilitary, police and underground elements linked to these forces has legitimised the practice of assassination and the threat of assassination. Under these circumstances a whole mentality has been introduced where no person can predict the kind of violence that they may become a victim of at any time. The normal mechanisms of the administration of justice are of little use. In fact, the pursuit of justice carries the real threat of being subjected to assassination and other forms of harm on individuals or groups.

When the ruling regimes and powerful sections of society fear the rule of law as a threat to themselves the civilian population is trapped in a situation where it has no means to assert its will for the purpose of improving their living conditions. All attempts to improve living conditions such as the improvement of wages, the decrease of prices of essential commodities, and the improvement of health and education opportunities and even to improve the facilities
for transport and communications are frustrated by an overpowering scheme in which none of these activities holds any legitimacy. The new rule established by force and the threat of force treats any such normal efforts as transgressions. All transgressions carry the threat of extrajudicial punishments. There is no proportionality between the act done and the punishment that may be meted out. For example a simple act of criticism can carry the death sentence.

The emergence of extrajudicial punishments has displaced the need for normal mechanisms for the administration of justice. New political schemes for the control of populations do not require the mediation through institutions of the administration of justice. Its ways of dealing with transgressions is direct which means by the use of force extra judicially.

Within this context there is also hardly any space for freedom of expression. Free speech and publication are seen as threats to this overreaching scheme of social control by extra legal means. Therefore, threats of extrajudicial punishments for any expression of dissent have become a common feature.
Thus, South Asia has not only become a no-law zone but has developed its own modes of social control within which extrajudicial punishments have become the normal way of societal control.

The following features have become manifest:

1. Extrajudicial punishments achieved either by way of exaggerated
   emergency laws or without any law at all have replaced the normal system of punishment through the criminal justice system.
2. Democratic forms of expression and struggle have been replaced with armed conflict between the state and the armed groups. The existence of the armed conflict is used to legitimise the suppression of democratic forms of expression and protest.
3. The policing system has been allowed to degenerate to an extent
   that they cannot perform the functions expected of them within a rule of law system.
4. Corruption is allowed to spread into all areas of life including
   all sectors of the administration of justice so that its capacity to
   uphold normal principles of justice is severely weakened.
5. Torture and extrajudicial killings including forced disappearances
   and the like have become necessary by-products of the transformation described above.
6. All public institutions are deprived of real power and are
   subjugated due to severe controls from above this depriving them of any form of independence and rational functioning.
7. The existence of the above mentioned situations makes everyone, including those in public life, dependent on political loyalties.
8. Loss of faith in law leads people often to take the law into their
   own hands either by way of meting punishment by themselves or by getting the law enforcement agencies to act outside the law by bribing them or by the use of the criminal underground.
9. The lack of confidence in the legal process has created the
   perception that to get any form of attention on an issue some form of violence has to be resorted to.
10. The normal process of criminal investigations is regarded as a
    threat to this new scheme.
11. The criticism of the military has begun to be treated as very
    important transgression deserving of extrajudicial punishment. The military spending is not subjected to public scrutiny.
12. This scheme that places extrajudicial punishment in a central
    place undermines the supremacy of the parliament. Even
    parliamentarians who exercise their normal functions as
    representatives of the people may be subjected to extrajudicial
    punishment.
13. A state of unabated impunity prevails.

The transformation that has taken place within south Asian society,
shifting from basically one that accepted the rule of law model to
one that has rejected that basis and the acceptance of extrajudicial
punishment as a normal way of social control needs to be reckoned
with by anyone that believes in justice, democracy and human rights
in the region.

The Imperatives of the ‘Regional Solution’

Dr VP Vaidik

 

Joe Biden’s visit to Afghanistan on  January 10 and Hamid Karzai’s to India in quick succession are parts of one jigsaw puzzle. Obama would definitely like to understand the intricacies of  South Asian politics before he finally makes up his mind. Mr. Biden had already visited Pakistan. The issue before Obama is whether to continue with Bush’s polices or change them. The Mumbai attack has shaken the US. This was evident in three-day long television and unlimited print media coverage of the attacks. Obama’s comment, that India has the right to self-defense, does not sum up the issue. The possibility of such attacks on Washington, New York or Chicago must be haunting him. Now General Petraeus has come up with a new theory, according to which problems in Afghanistan can not be solved unless India plays an active role in the region. He perceives terrorism and violence as regional issues with regional solutions, which require the participation of not only China, Russia and Pakistan but other neighboring countries, specially India. The US has made no concrete statement as yet; on the contrary, Obama is planning to deploy another 30 thousand troops in Afghanistan.

 

The NATO forces are sacrificing and fighting bravely but are unable to get any success or credit. The two NATO ambassadors to Afghanistan have explicitly shown there frustration with current situation. The US reckons the slow progress of Afghan affairs and realizes that with the ongoing lackluster performance, it will take another 15 years to wrap up the job. Afghanistan has been like a second home for me. On my last trip, I visited several cities and villages, and I witnessed a remarkable disillusionment among the afghans. They consider the NATO soldiers worse than the Russians. The Afghans hate the way these soldiers raid their houses, search their women, and throw rockets on the marriage processions and community centers. I am told by many persons that they are even complicit in opium smuggling in Helmand valley. The unsavory activities of NATO soldiers are also earning a bad name for Hamid Karzai’s government, which, in turn, is facilitating Talibani resurgence. Even after all these years, Hamid Karzai’s government remains fragile. There is no National Afghan Army strong enough to fight the Taliban. The ground reality is that if NATO forces were to leave Afghanistan, Taliban will not even take five hours to decimate the current government. In totality, US’s Afghanistan mission has proven to be a failure, and this is the reason that the idea of a ‘regional solution’ is gaining currency.

 

General Petraeus’s recent statement regarding a ‘regional solution’ to the Afghan problem is on the same lines which I proposed in my earlier articles on the subject a few months ago. Last month Obama’s foreign policy advisors’ team came to Delhi and for or three-four days they did an intense amount of brainstorming over the Afghan issue with the Indian experts and officials. It appears as if the US is in some kind of hurry to leave Afghanistan. In the time of economic downturn, millions of dollars are going down the drain in maintaining the forces in Afghanistan. The US’s spirits are running low and their forces seem tired. In past seven years, US has spent about 120 billion dollars on this war. The US experts are well aware that the raising the number of soldiers is not going to help win the war against the Taliban. The outside solution has already failed. They must look for an inside solution. The inside solution is called as regional solution in the parlance of International Politics.

 

What is this ‘regional solution’? Is it that the US withdraws its forces and India sends its forces to Afghanistan as their replacement? Surely, it will be a sheer naïveté on US’s part to suggest such a solution at this juncture. In 1981, Babrak Karmal, President of Afghanistan, came out with the same solution to replace the Russian forces with the Indian. The impracticality of the solution had made me turn it down immediately. My biggest worry is India agreeing to the regional solution proposed by US without considering its repercussions. Our leader’s lack of experience in foreign affairs and the current heady atmosphere of Indo-American friendship can tilt the argument in favor of America. India should heed the lessons of history: in past 150 years Afghans have thrice defeated the mighty British forces, drove Russians out of Afghanistan, and were instrumental in the disintegration of the USSR.

 

Since the Afghan issue has far-reaching ramifications for South Asian politics, India being the regional superpower cannot remain indifferent. No doubt, sending its forces to Afghanistan is in India’s interest. The Indian forces will also be much more effective than the NATO or American forces. The expenditure on them would be far less than on the NATO forces. However, Indian forces should not be imposed on Afghanistan like that of the US, NATO and the Russian forces. Before India takes any decision Afghanistan and Pakistan  should pass a resolution in their Parliaments favor of Indian forces being sent to Afghanistan. Pakistan’s collaboration is vital because no force can survive and win the war in Afghanistan without its support. A joint front of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India alone can exterminate the Taliban from South Asia. However, the active participation of Pakistan appears extremely doubtful with the growing tension between India and Pakistan since the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan is already facing Indian forces on its eastern front, and therefore, would never agree to have Indian forces also on its western front, lest it is surrounded on both sides by India. If the US has a plan to replace its armies in Afghanistan with the Indian Armies, it would not augur well for the US-Pak relations. Pakistan will resist this proposition tooth and nail. It was a different situation six month ago, when I mooted this idea. US will have to rethink its strategy of calling Pakistan as its only and reliable ally in the region against terrorism. The attitude of Pakistan on the Mumbai attack is a case in point.  The US should pick up courage to rescind the policy of artificial balance of power that it had created in South Asia since 1947. Is US ready to do so? Only if America is ready for this fundamental change can the ‘regional solution’ work.

 

19 Jan 2008

dr.vaidik@gmail.com

(00-91) 98-9171-1947