In the face of rising sex crimes

Society seems to have accepted that sexual assaults are normal and there is no redress for the crime. Everyday the media, newspapers in particular, carry a number of incidents of rape, gang rape and murder after rape, rape attempt, sexual harassment in varying manners and situations. People are hardly shocked by the excessive violence sexual predators demonstrate on a regular basis. Why is this apathy? One answer is that the frequency of the violence is too high for common people to get outraged on a sustained basis. But should people surrender to the aggression that is out to negate the social values, moral principles and all things held dear to them?
One thing is clear that crime thrives in an environment of legal laxity. When law is not allowed to take its own course and the criminals go unpunished, people lose confidence in the system of justice. The emotion and outrage evoked by the Yasmin and Seema rape and murder cases all across the country are a true measure of the revulsion this nation felt at the dastardly acts. Today, sex crime has taken many deviant and bizarre forms and yet the public reaction is muted.
What has happened to a 14-year old school girl from Jhikorgacha beats the most infamous perversion imaginable and abuse of social privilege and status. Her story is true representative of the kind of sexual abuse girls and women of the poorer and weaker segment of society are subjected to as well as of the utter helplessness they are condemned to. She was raped by an influential man of Bakura in Jhikorgachha, in whose house her mother served as a housemaid. When it was known that the girl became pregnant, the rapist forced the family, under threat, to leave Jhikorgachha. Her family took shelter in Barindipara of Jessore town.
However, her shelter proved too insecure to protect her. She was reportedly abducted on October 23, 13 days before the possible due date for delivery of her baby. The girl was found abandoned at Dhaka city's Gabtoli area 10 days after her abduction. She has had her baby delivered somewhere she cannot recognise. All she remembers is that masked men brought her to the capital in a microbus for delivery of the baby by a caesarean operation. The little one died four days later and the gang was kind enough to wait until the stitches of her abdomen were removed.
Left abandoned at Gabtoli at night, the sick girl was groaning and local people were moved by her condition. They made arrangement for her journey to Jessore where she is now receiving treatment at the Jessore general hospital.
What a sexual saga! Fiendish the man first took advantage of the girl's vulnerability to satisfy her carnal last. Although the age of the rapist is not reported, it appears he has a family. His socio-economic status is high enough to keep him restrained from such sexual indulgence. Instead, after forcibly prevailing over the girl, the man intimidated the family so that it left his locality. He committed a heinous crime -one that has ruined the life of an innocent girl. Then in response to a case filed against him, he has evidently made arrangement for her abduction.
Now if the report carried in a number of newspapers is factual, the criminal too is known. After all, no person other than one who has money and influence can go for the abduction and subsequent operations. In his hand, the girl is just a plaything. The impression is that he can make and unmake her and her family. Actually he has given a clear demonstration of what he is capable of. He seems to be on course of unmaking her.
What is most disturbing is that this man has goons working under him. Actually, he is not alone in this business. Mafia-style power exercise has become a fad and occupation for the neo-godfathers of Bangladesh. They hold everyone else in society-even the legal system in contempt. The reason is quite clear: legal organs have become malleable to corruption and compromises. Complaint against a man for committing a serious crime like this should have prompted the law enforcement agencies into immediate action.
To go by the report, nothing of this order happened. Nor there has been a vigorous protest -either locally or at the national level -against the rapist and his devilish act. In fact, inaction by society has also made the legal apparatus less active against such repression and injustice. At the family level too, the taboo of sex is making way for explicit approval. When a young predator rapes a girl, his family, irrespective of status, leaves no stone unturned to protect the offender. If rich and influential, the family tries to manage local arbitrators and often pay quite an amount of money so that no case is filed. A portion of the money is shared by the arbitrators and the rest is handed over to the victim's family as compensation. Sometimes the poor girls and their families are cheated too.
Quite clearly, it is the criminals, rapists and sexual predators who are getting social protection instead of the victims. This vicious social outlook needs to be changed for turning it into zero tolerance to crimes -sex or otherwise. This done, society will be enough armed to fight sexual abuse of girls and women.
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