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BANGLADESH - INDIGENOUS GIRL AGE 11
RAPED BY POLICEMAN BUT CHALLENGE FOR COMPLAINT & NO ACTION YET AGAINST
RAPIST
10 September 2012 - The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information regarding an incident of rape. An 11-year-old girl has been raped by a policeman in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The minor girl has suffered serious physical, psychological, and social trauma due to the sexual assault for which the local police initially refused to register a complaint. Instead of registering the complaint the Atal Tila Police Camp In-charge offered BDT 1,000 (USD $ 12) to the girl's mother for settling the matter. Due to tremendous public pressure, a complaint was recorded with the Dighinala police station. The police authorities have not taken any action against the alleged perpetrator, other than withdrawing the cop from his place of duty, which is an 'eye-wash', to protect the policeman, rather than ensure justice.
CASE NARRATIVE:
Ruma (name changed), an 11-year-old girl from an indigenous community named Ruma was raped by a police constable on August 21st, 2012. The crime was committed in the afternoon, at around 2:30 pm, when Ruma was grazing family cattle in the Atal Tila Noymile area, which falls under the jurisdiction of Dighinala police station in Khagrachhari District of Bangladesh. The rapist policeman has been identified as Md. Russle Rana, attached to the Atal Tila police camp.
According to information with AHRC, on the afternoon of August 21st, Miss Ruma, along with her 8 year old sister, left Tapan Karbari Para Village that falls under the Merung Union Parishad in order to graze cows near the Ataltila police camp at Noymile area. Ruma went to collect greens and herbs from a place near the Atal Tila police camp while her younger sister was grazing the cattle few hundred meters away. Police Constable Md. Russle Rana saw Ruma alone in the area and forcefully took her behind a bush adjacent to the police camp, where he raped her. The policeman struck Ruma on the right hand and right leg with a stick before raping her.
Ruma was left lying in the bush for a while. She later returned home, still bleeding from the rape. Ruma's mother Ms. Nitya Bala Tripura heard the story from her daughter and went to the Atal Tila police camp. She insisted that the on-duty police officer Sub Inspector Mr. Md. Shah Alam register a complaint regarding the rape of her daughter by police constable Md. Russle Rana. Instead of registering Nitya's complaint, the police officer offered her BDT 1,000.00 (USD $ 12) to settle the matter.
Having been refused by the police, Ms. Nitya Bala Tripura contacted the local village head Mr. Tapan Tripura Karbari of the Noymile village. The Tripura Students' Forum, an association of students of the Tripura indigenous community, came to know about the crime. At this stage, the indigenous villagers gathered at the police camp and demanded arrest of the rapist policeman. Due to tremendous pressure from the local people, the police authorities declared that they had withdrawn the alleged rapist Md. Rasel Rana from the police camp and sent him to the police barrack of the district. The local people continued demanding arrest of the policeman, which has not yet been done.
The local pressure helped Nitya Bala Tripura file a rape case (No. 3, date August 21st, 2012) under Section 9(1) of Women and Child Repression (Prevention) Act 2000 on the same night with the Dighinala police station. Ruma was taken to the Dighinala Hospital on the same night for medical examination. Later, the doctors transferred her to the Khagrachhari Sadar Hospital, where the doctors confirmed evidence of rape. Since then, Ruma has received medical treatment at the hospital to heal her injuries.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
The term 'rape' or its synonym, is rarely found in the dialects of the indigenous communities living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, as according to them the incidents of rape are almost zero in their communities. If a girl is raped, like in all other communities, anywhere in the country, it brings dishonor and social stigmatization to the victim, and her family.
The family of a victim of rape faces difficulty in arranging marriage of their daughter if the case of rape of their daughter is made public. This social problem, which follows an incident of rape, regardless of the identity of the victim – whether she is from indigenous or other mainstream communities – is not expectedly understood by ordinary criminals. But, when cops commit a heinous crime like rape, it provokes a serious question about their professional training and monitoring system.
The policeman, who raped the girl, deserves to be prosecution under the law. At the same time, the police officer who offered money to the mother of the victim of rape deserves prosecution as well for his attempt at covering up the crime committed by his colleague. The attempt to bribe the mother of the rape victim further reflects the mindset of the police that fails to match that of a professional police force. This attitude of police officers forces the people to protest against the authorities, as it happened in this case. It means that the system does not function to uphold the rule of law in Bangladesh. Instead, the people, who strive for the rule of law, have to fight with extra-energy and efforts to make something happen in the name of the 'rule of law' for which they fail many times and succeed rarely in the country.
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Subject: Impunity for Violence Against Women Is Global Concern - SR
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Impunity for Violence Against Women
Is a Global Concern
14 August 2012 - Governments are urged
to act with due diligence to prevent and investigate violence against women and
girls, prosecute perpetrators and provide protection and redress to victims.
This was contained in the report to the Human Rights Council
by Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes
and consequences.
She noted that religious, cultural, and social norms and
beliefs are largely the causal factors for harmful practices resulting in
violence against women. Therefore countries’ efforts to comply must also
address these structural causes.
Globally the prevalence of different manifestations of
killings targeting women is increasing and a lack of accountability for such
crimes remains a concern.
“Whether labelled murder, homicide, femicide, feminicide, or
‘honour’ killings, these manifestations of violence are culturally and socially
embedded, and continue to be accepted, tolerated or justified - with impunity
as the norm,” stressed the independent expert reacting to the latest killing of
women in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Impunity for the killings of women has become a global
concern, a fact noted by the UN Secretary General BAN Ki-moon when he stated
that, “Impunity for violence against women compounds the effects of such
violence as a mechanism of control. When the State fails to hold perpetrators
accountable, impunity not only intensifies the subordination and powerlessness
of the targets of violence, but also sends a message to society that male
violence against women is both acceptable and inevitable”.
These killings targeting women, Rashida Manjoo decried, are
extreme signs of existing forms of violence against women and are not isolated
incidents that arise suddenly.
They are rather the ultimate act of violence which is
experienced in a continuum of violence.
“Failure of States to guarantee the right of women to a life
free from violence” has led to many deaths of women, she adds.
In her report, she further states that the killings can both
be active, direct or passive and indirect. The direct category includes
killings as a result of intimate-partner violence; killings related to
allegations of sorcery and witchcraft; armed conflict; dowry; gender identity
and sexual orientation as a result of hatred and prejudice; ethnic- and
indigenous identity; and female infanticide and honour killings.
The indirect killings she states include deaths linked to
human trafficking, drug dealing, organized crime and gang-related activities;
maternal mortality; deaths of girls or women due to simple neglect through
starvation, ill-treatment and deliberate acts of inaction by the State.
Killings by intimate partners have significantly been
underreported and the Special Rapporteur states in her report that studies have
shown that in many countries the home is the place where a woman is most likely
to be murdered.
On killings related to allegations of sorcery and
witchcraft, the report shows that the pattern includes violent murders,
physical mutilation, women being burned or buried alive, displacement,
kidnapping and disappearance of girls and women who are also subjected to
“exorcism”.
The report further adds that crimes committed in the name of
“honour” have been characterized as being among the most severe of the harmful
practices. The murders are carried out to “cleanse" family honour and are
committed with high levels of impunity in many parts of the world.
Honour crimes also include stoning, women and girls being
coerced to commit suicide after public denunciation of their behaviour, or
being subjected to acid attacks. These crimes often go unreported, are rarely
investigated and, when punished, sentences are far less than those for equally
violent crimes.
In her 2012 report, the Special Rapporteur on violence
against women, its causes and consequences, Rashida Manjoo from