University students during a protest in Dhaka on Sunday against sexual violence and rape.
University students during a protest in Dhaka on Sunday against sexual violence and rape.
A women’s rights organisation in Bangladesh has reported 189 instances of violence against women in the country in February alone, prising open uncomfortable questions for the interim government headed by Peace Nobel winner Muhammad Yunus.
Among the victims were 72 minor girls of whom 30 had been raped, says the report by the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, based on news collated from 15 national dailies.
Of the 48 rape victims the report counted overall, 8 women and 3 minor girls had been gang-raped.
“Forty-six victims, including 10 minor girls, died in these instances of attacks,” the report, released last week, said.
The Parishad had been set up in the tumultuous days preceding the 1971 Liberation War during which an estimated 2 to 4 million East Pakistani women had been subjected to systematic rape by the Pakistani Army.
January witnessed 205 instances of violence against women, the Parishad has said.
While the trend has received little coverage from most media outlets in Bangladesh, the last few days have seen several street protests by women seeking safety and the right to wear what they want and live the way they want.
Students from several Dhaka colleges have called for a mega gathering on Tuesday at the storied protest site of Shahbag to condemn the rise in crimes against women and demand strong action against the perpetrators.
Several women’s rights activists from Bangladesh told this newspaper that while women had always been vulnerable in the country, the situation had never been “as bad” since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster last August.
Hasina’s fall paved the way for the interim government to be formed under Yunus, who got into the saddle with the support of the army and all hues of Islamist parties.
When visuals of ecstatic men dancing at Ganabhaban, holding up women’s undergarments as trophies, went viral on August 5 after Hasina fled the country, exiled author Taslima Nasrin and several other women’s activists had predicted the beginning of a new period of oppression for women.
Although reports of attacks on women over the next few days — mostly on social media — confirmed these fears, Yunus’s spin doctors downplayed the incidents as the “effervescence of a revolution” against a “fascist dictator”.
When students from religious seminaries forced the cancellation of a women’s football friendly in the northwestern town of Joypurhat, and actresses and models were prevented from inaugurating showrooms, the government called them stray incidents.
Taslima, however, said the numbers represented a familiar pattern in today’s Bangladesh where the government is sympathetic to convicted terrorists and rapists and has released many of them in recent months.
“This government is full of male chauvinist, anti-women, fundamentalist and radical Islamists.… They consider women inferior and have created an environment in which perpetrators of crimes against women feel emboldened,” Taslima, in exile in India, told this newspaper.
Zonaida Nasreen, a professor at Dhaka University (DU), referred to how, in the city’s upscale Lalmatia locality, an elderly man had accosted two young women for smoking and physically assaulted them. She also cited a widely circulated video that purports to show a non-teaching DU staff member abusing a woman for her “improper attire”.
Students take part in a protest rally at the University of Dhaka, demanding capital punishment for the rapist following rape on an underaged girl, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 9, 2025.
Students take part in a protest rally at the University of Dhaka, demanding capital punishment for the rapist following rape on an underaged girl, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, March 9, 2025.
Reuters
“I have never seen such levels of moral policing ever in our country.… Those girls were smoking in private, but this man beat them up and no one protested,” she said over the phone.
“The non-teaching staff member was taken to the police station but a mob came, got him released and garlanded him,” she added. “Strangers come up to you on the roads and abuse you for not wearing a hijab or a burqa.”
Amid growing criticism of Yunus for the attacks on women, the government promised on Sunday to quicken the investigations into rapes and assaults on women.
Yunus’s legal adviser, Asif Nazrul, said the government planned to enact a law requiring the police to complete rape investigations within 15 days and the courts to complete the trials in 90 days.
Taslima, however, said the enactment of such laws would do precious little in a country where the political masters — from Hasina to her bete noire Begum Khaleda — had given a free run to people who peddle religion to wield influence over society.
“In the name of religious sermons, these men spew venom and spread hatred against women at the waz mehfils (religious preaching events)... Not only did the likes of Hasina and Khaleda placate this section, they also used them for political gain,” Taslima said. She castigated Hasina for doling out large sums to the madrasas and giving their students equivalence with those from other boards.
“Hasina gave full support to these anti-women radical elements for the sake of her politics,” she said. “These elements got her dethroned, brought Yunus and he is also pampering them.”
Taslima said the government must curb the waz mehfils to protect women from predators.