Laws alone cannot save women from sexual violence
Yet another young life has been lost because of society's failure to protect women and girls. A college student, who had been gang-raped six weeks ago, was found dead at her parents' home in Dhaka on Saturday night. Police suspect that the girl—daughter of a martyr of the July-August uprising—died by suicide. Reportedly, she had been raped by two men in Patuakhali's Dumki upazila on March 18 when she was returning to her maternal grandparents' home after visiting her father's grave. A case was later filed, and the accused were arrested. However, they had allegedly also taken photos of the victim and threatened to post them online if she reported the incident, according to the case file.
Prothom Alo reported that following her death, the girl's family filed an unnatural death case with the Adabor police station in Dhaka, quoting a police source who said they would investigate whether she had received threats from the alleged perpetrators. According to a report in this daily, the incident had left the girl deeply traumatised and she had been undergoing treatment. But is counselling enough when society at large constantly points fingers at rape survivors?
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It is this very attitude—the deeply entrenched misogyny—that gives criminals the power to use rape and sexual violence as a weapon. How else can we explain the 105 gang rapes recorded last year and the 64 in just the first three months of this year (according to Ain o Salish Kendra)? Among the survivors of rape or gang rape, seven died by suicide in 2024, while two deaths by suicide were recorded between January and March. What's worse is that the majority of the victims are girls under 18.
We can blame our justice system—the slow legal process, the extremely low rape conviction rate, or the state's failure to provide comprehensive and free legal, medical, and psychological support—for the situation. But an unspoken truth remains: we, as a society, have failed to teach our men to respect women and see them as human beings, not commodities, not objects on which they can exercise power at will. As parents, we have failed to instil the right values in our sons, while simultaneously creating an environment where our daughters feel ashamed of their very existence.
While we hope the government takes appropriate measures to ensure that the Patuakhali victim's family gets justice swiftly, it must do much more for the millions of girls who do not feel safe or respected enough as human beings. Patriarchy must be fought and toxic masculinity uprooted through mass campaigns, education, and proper enforcement of laws to prevent misogynistic content and behaviour online, in social settings, and in religious sermons. Unless men learn to see women as equals, which they are, we will continue to lose precious lives like that of this college girl.
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