Unity in diversity: Indigenous peoples in Bangladesh

As stipulated in article 27 of our constitution, all citizens are equal in the eye of law and they are entitled to equal protection by law.  According to article 28 (1), the state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth; (2) women shall have equal rights alongside men in all spheres of the state and public life.
According to Ain O Salish Kendra, 615 women were victims of attempted rape, rape and gang rape across Bangladesh in 2014. On the other hand, according to Kapaeeng Foundation, similar crimes were committed in 2014 on 55 indigenous women. If the aforementioned information of Ain O Salish Kendra covers only the women of mainstream population, then the total victims of both Bengali and indigenous women in 2014 would be 670. Accordingly, out of 670 women victims/survivors, 8.2 per cent victims are from the indigenous community, who are just 1.8 per cent of our total population. On the other hand, out of 670 women, 91.8 per cent are from the Bengalees, who comprise 98.0 per cent of the total population. From the statistical calculation given here, it becomes clear that indigenous women are more targeted in crimes like sexual violence than the mainstream women due to their ethnic and cultural differences and associated vulnerabilities.
Bangladesh takes unusually longer time for trial of the crimes. Indigenous people, largely poor and illiterate, find it hard to hang on to the court cases for long. Land grabbers seize the opportunity to put pressure on the helpless victims to sell their property. When the land grabbers fail in their techniques, they eventually go for harming (even to the extent of killing) their opponents. It has been seen that state actors are also not lagging behind non-state actors in seizing lands belonging to indigenous people.
SITUATION OF THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND GIRLS: The majority of the victims/survivors were children (60.0 per cent) in the age group of 4-18 years, and 40.0 per cent were adults above 18 years of age. The striking feature of this crime against indigenous women and girls was that the dominant perpetrators were Bengalee settlers in the CHT and Bengalees in the plains (91.0 per cent in both the cases).
Such incidents occur due to ethnic and cultural differences. Violence against women and girls is one of the weapons used widely to evict ethnic, cultural and religious minorities from their ancestral lands. Although a few of the perpetrators were put in the jail following the cases filed against them, most of them got released soon after. A culture of impunity along with patriarchy, hegemonic masculinities and gender disparities towards indigenous women bars limited or no access to justice.
SITUATION OF THE RIGHTS OF YOUTH, CHILDREN AND EDUCATION: The issues of human rights of indigenous youth and children are often overlooked and are not much discussed. Bangladesh recently enacted the Children Act 2013 in order to protect and fulfill the rights of children in Bangladesh. However, this law remained largely on paper; the provisions of this Act are yet to be properly complied with by the government.
Besides, this law does not have any specific provision for indigenous children. As a result, the situation of human rights for indigenous children in 2014 remained vulnerable. The state of education in 2014 witnessed similar trends despite some mixed developments. Although a number of positive developments could be observed throughout the year, some of the initiatives taken by the government resulted in violation of the rights to education.
Government's plan to kick off mother tongue-based Multilingual Education (MLE) for indigenous children has failed to make any headway even after a lapse of nearly two years.
There are some positive moves too. Transfer of secondary education to the three Hill District Councils (HDC) in May 2014 generated a new hope for positive change in secondary education of underprivileged indigenous communities in the CHT. 280 indigenous candidates of 34th batch of BCS, who were left out in the revised results of preliminary test published in 2013, won the right to sit for written exams after a High Court directive in February 2014.
The government has taken an initiative to conduct a survey on the languages of indigenous peoples in Bangladesh with the intent to revitalise and preserve the indigenous languages at risk. Ministry of Education, through the International Mother Language Institute, has started to implement this project since early 2014.
CHT ACCORD OF 1997: PRESENT STATE AND CHALLENGES OF ITS IMPLEMENTATION: This year marks the conclusion of 17 years since the signing of the CHT Accord in 1997 between the Government of Bangladesh and the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS). The government keeps on claiming that 48 out of 72 sections of the CHT Accord have been implemented and 15 sections out of the rest have been partially implemented, while the remaining 9 sections are under the process of implementation.  On the other hand, as per the observation of the PCJSS, only 25 out of 72 sections of the CHT Accord were implemented so far.  Thirty-four sections of the Accord still remain totally un-implemented, while13 sections were partially implemented. It means that two-third of the CHT Accord still await implementation.
After forming the new government on  January 12, 2014, the present government took a few initiatives for the implementation of the CHT Accord, such as, (1) transfer of 5 subjects/department to the HDCs; (2) enactment of CHT Development Board Act-2014 despite reservation of the CHT Regional Council; passage of three Hill District Council (Amendment) Acts 2014 ignoring the advice of the CHT Regional Council and despite popular protest against these amendment bills; (3) Holding of a meeting of Task Force on Rehabilitation of Returnee Refugees and Internally Displaced Families; and (4) Holding of two meetings for amendment of the CHT Land Disputes Resolution Commission Act 2001.
UNITY IN DIVERSITY SHOULD BE THE ULTIMATE GOAL: Bangladesh has been blessed with its multicultural heritage and long history and we need to nourish and preserve these for our identity and pride. From all corners, we need to come forward to establish a just society where there will be no discriminations and violation of human rights irrespective of creed, culture, race and ethnicity. The following recommendations can contribute greatly to improve the overall situation of the indigenous people in our country and can make a free and fair atmosphere for coexistence:
1) To form a separate land commission for indigenous peoples in the plains to facilitate restoration of their dispossessed lands; 2) To stop communal violence and physical abuse against indigenous women and girls and to conduct judicial inquiries into the communal violence and abuses against indigenous women; 3) To provide constitutional recognition to the indigenous people as per international human rights instruments ratified by the Government of Bangladesh and 4) To conduct investigation into the human rights violations against indigenous peoples by the National Human Rights Commission regularly.
The writer is team leader of Light House and now leading a UKAID supported 'Community Legal Services (CLS)'
programme in Rajshahi division. [email protected]