THIS is worrying that incidents of sexual violence and rape are increasing. The Bangladesh Women鈥檚 Council reported a rise in gender-based violence in 2024, with the majority of the victims being girl children. There is an alarming surge in child marriage too. In 2024, about 20 cases of child marriage were reported whereas in the first six months of this year, the number is 61. Dowry-related violence is also already double the number of total reported cases in 2024. Since the interim government was installed in August 2024, as police data say, 4,293 rape cases were recorded in a year. In April, 684 rape cases were recorded, which was the highest in 28 months since January 2023. Crimes against women in virtual spaces are rampant. Earlier, an ActionAid Bangladesh study found that 63.51 per cent of the women surveyed were victims of online harassment. Incidents of sexual violence are higher in rural areas and in most cases, perpetrators are known people, within either the family or the community.
The prevailing scenario suggests that the interim government in its effort to contain sexual violence has followed the past legacy and made no impact in ensuring women鈥檚 safety or preventing gender discrimination. Successive governments, in preventing gender-based crimes, focused on punitive measures. In an intensely patriarchal legal system, a punitive approach, too, has failed. The conviction rate for rape and sexual violence cases remains as low as 3 per cent, which is considered among the lowest in South Asia. Feminist scholars have for long argued that legal campaigns and strict laws alone will not prevent such violence. A constant media portrayal of women as mere sexual objects has helped to gain indirect social approval and normalised male aggression in society. Many even argue that child marriage or dowry is a clear affirmation of the fact that her gender determines her economic worth or political significance. This patriarchal assumption that women are economically burdensome provides men with ideological ammunition to demand dowry or justify child marriage. Therefore, without addressing the structural inequality that women face in society 鈥� unequal status in inheritance law, wage inequity and lack of political representation 鈥� it will not be possible to change women鈥檚 overall status or end gender-based violence.
Taking into consideration this structure of oppression, it is evident that any superficial approach to prevent sexual violence against women will fall flat, which is the case in Bangladesh today. The government should adopt a multipronged approach to prevent gender-based violence and gender discrimination. To take the government to task, women鈥檚 organisations should abandon project-based, short-sighted women鈥檚 empowerment models and work to establish women鈥檚 equal right to wage, inheritance and political participation.
