Bangladesh, a developing country, though holding quite a small area is flooded with uncountable problems. Among these, eve-teasing, recently has become the burning issue for the country because of its adverse effects on women, especially to the teenage girls.
Eve teasing has remained a concern since many years. But the fact that it has taken a massive shape is of great concern. The practice of eve-teasing is a form of sexual assault that ranges in brutality from catcalls, sexually evocative remarks, brushing in public places, to outright groping and very recently teasing by mobile phone and mobile tracking.
It is an obvious fact that no conscious citizen of our country is unaware about this ugly situation created by the youth who follow criminal behavior. Suicide of a probable school or college girl as an outcome of eve-teasing is an obvious news whenever we scroll down the daily newspapers.
Eve-teasing has no bounds. Every other person on the streets intend to assault women ranging from rich to poor, being literate to being uneducated. It is very sad that, a healthy number of educated boys from reputed families are growing hanker after towards this practice.
According to the report from ‘Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association’ (BNWLA) the probable eve-teasers on the streets of Bangladesh are teenage boys, traffic police, rickshaw pullers, bus drivers, supervisors or colleagues of the working women. Statistics suggests 32% of the eve teasers are students, 33% are middle-aged men while 35% are anti-socials.
A common scenario of defining how women are sexually harassed would be the fact that these teasers wait in schools mostly, in colleges or they just sit outside the houses and as soon as they cite the girls walk past them they start passing bad comments, dirty jokes, sly whistles, uncivilized laughter, and sometimes reaching the extreme of rude publicity. The society blames the women or girls stating that they aggravate the teasers by failing to wear modest clothes.
On the contrary, those wearing decent dress are not found to be teased as usual and sometimes to an even greater extent.
There are many theories of why eve-teasing is so common. One of the main reasons suggested by social scientists and psychologists is that eve teasing is a result of the frustration that majority of the youth in Bangladesh suffer. These people are often dissatisfied by indifferent parents and the inappropriate behavior of teachers. Thus they crave for a means to display their depression ultimately resulting in aggression. The case is also for those who fail to inherit proper values from their family.
On the other hand there are others who feel that it is the direct outcome of a sexually repressive society, in which women by tradition have no voice whatsoever and do not possess equal rights. Moreover there is a lot more to blame when considering why the young people of our country have been aggravated to this level.
The first reason is the influence of western media, for those who hold a mixed trace on sensitivity towards women’s issues.
Due to the brutal rise of eve-teasing in our country, parents and guardians are passing days in great anxiety for the safety of their children. The normal lives of these girls are being hampered due its rapid increase.
One of the most adverse consequences of eve-teasing would be the rise in drop-out rate of girls from school and thus to protect children from not losing their respect and also keep them safe, parents keep their daughters at home which feels like eternity or simply marry them off at a very early age. Those who are the victims are also sometimes forced into marriage, before they are mentally or physically matured.
For the development of the economy of our nation, women who compose of almost half of our population need to participate in the employment sector. But unfortunate for them eve teasers are hindering their participation.
For protective measure the Government of Bangladesh has pursued a number of legal measures, both direct and indirect to minimize the violence against women and uphold their rights.
A few of the legal acts are in chronological order:
• Penal Code, Section 375, 1860
• The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898
• The Child Marriage Control Act, 1929
• The Dissolution of Muslim Marriage Act, 1939
• The Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act, 1974
• The Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance (DMPO) of 1976
• The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1980
• The Family Court Ordinance, 1985
• The Legal Aid Provision Act, 2000
• The Prevention of Women and Children Repression Act, 2000
• The Acid Crime Prevention Act, 2002
• The Acid Control Act, 2002
Interestingly, eve teasing has nothing to do with any physical harassment and thus the law of our country rejects it to be a violent act. Thus the tragedy lies that the victims of eve teasing are never being taken seriously by the police or the legal authority. Yet facts, report and evidence states that the victims of eve-teasing are brutally affected mentally some of which leads to suicide and thus is as violent as any physical assault could be.
As stated above in the Prevention of Women and Children Repression Act, 2000, a remarkable provision was mentioned in article 10 that teasing women through vulgar gestures and comments is offensive and the punishment for such act would be simple imprisonment for seven years or two years of meticulous imprisonment.
But then again in 2003, the act was amended stating that no one would be charged of sexual abuse until and unless it is physical. Therefore, those who usually disturb women in the streets, malls or buses would no longer fall under this law. In order to defend this act, the government said that the provision in the form of the above act was to abuse to harass rivals and those usual cases were that the claimants could not prove any cases of eve teasing.
Under the 1972 Constitution of Bangladesh, women`s rights are protected under the broad and universal principles of equality and participation.
These principles are found in the following Articles in the Constitution:
• Article 10 of the Constitution provides that steps shall be taken to ensure participation of women in all spheres of national life.
• Article 19 (1) provides that the State shall endeavor to ensure equality of opportunity to all citizens. Article 27 specifies that all citizens are equal before the law and are entitled to equal protection of the law. Moreover, Article 28 (1) provides that the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.
Article 28 (2) more directly and categorically says that women shall have equal rights with men in all spheres of the State and of public life.
This latter provision means that all rights mentioned in the Constitution, such as right to life, right to personal liberty, right to property, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom to exercise a profession or occupation are equally applicable to women in Bangladesh.
It is very sad that in our country where we have majority of the ministers as females especially the prime minister and also the opposition leader, we dwell in an environment totally unsafe for women.
Various law amendments have been done, a lot of actions have been taken by the government, but all of these are somewhat vague and not strong enough to stop these treacherous people who are a disgrace to our society. All the legal action will only be successful when we as a nation will change our attitudes.
If we want to get rid of this practice we need to change the attitudes of men and engrave a self generated respect for women coming from their heart.
The writer is a publisher and editor of law related weekly newspaper ‘Shomoyer Digonto’ and is a M .Phil researcher, lawyer in kushtia judge’s court. E-mail: [email protected]
