Rape incidents have been rising steadily in Bangladesh over the years. But over the last couple of months these incidents are reported in much greater frequency unlike any other time in the past. Also in savagery and their details, effects on victims, etc. these incidents seem to be beating all records. Even minor children are getting raped frequently. Young women are getting gang raped. From reading about the horrific accounts one may start forming a notion whether Bangladesh has ‘all on a sudden’ become the world’s most rape infested country.

But only about a year ago rape incidents used to be not unusual but usual as can be expected in a highly populated country. Why then such an ‘extraordinary’ spurt in rape cases in such a short time ? Is this unceasing trail of rape cases in the last couple of months a normal development or is it the handiwork of paid operators behind the wings calculated to create and bolster some kind of opinion ? What could be the aim of such opinion makers ? It should be obvious that it could be no other than paving the ground for saying that the government is failing dismally to protect female citizens in the country who have sunk to the lowest depths of despair and insecurity.

Conspicuously, every time a rape occurs we come across statements the next day from this or that opposition leader pointing viciously to the government’s or law enforcement machinery’s failure on that ground. It is imperative for police’s investigative agencies to launch immediate investigations to find out whether these rape sprees are ‘just happening’ or whether these events are being deliberately engineered to humiliate the government and its police forces. It is so important to know the truth or to establish the truth in the public interest.

Now some observations in general about the rape scene in Bangladesh. Rapes used to be a shameful legacy of Bangladesh’s liberation war. But all of these things are now history. The thing to note in independent Bangladesh today is, the number of rape incidents are rising. Even the official figures do not include many other cases which are not reported from shame, social effects of the same, intimidation and from a feeling that justice will not be done to the victims.

Rape victims in many cases may not get justice. Most of them are at the bottom of the pile in society and the ones who rape them are locally powerful or influential persons or gangster who have strong influence on the police . The rape victims who do get their complaints registered in police stations are hazarded by lack of good follow-ups at hospitals to establish that they were really raped. Hospitals lack proper or decent facilities in carrying out examinations of raped women.

The rape incidents point to the need for actions on priority basis to punish the offenders. The ways of law enforcement are found not satisfactory in many cases. Therefore, steps need to be taken so that policemen feel ‘obligated’ to record genuine rape incidents and take sincere and swift actions against them. A monitoring system should be there for senior police officers to know whether the investigating officers in rape cases are doing their work. Any leniency must be dealt with promptly and sternly. Specially, the police must be instructed to protect rape victims and their families so that they can come forward to unhesitatingly report the incidents or intimidating activities against them by the rapists and their supporters. The process of medical examinations of rape victims should be much improved.

However, it is notable that the police administration lately has become much more responsive to allegation of rapes. In almost each and every case of rape in the last two months, the police have been nearly hundred percent successful in tracking down and arresting the alleged rapists. The arrested ones are behind bars and suffering the processes of law enforcement against them. We hope this stepped up actions of the police would be a sustainable feature from now on. However, greater activism on the part of the police ought not to detract attention away from the above suggestions of taking reformative steps in order to make all aspects of dealing with rape cases an efficient and accountable process.

There is also one other very important aspect. Government is reportedly considering making the laws against rape, stronger or harsher, probably for the deterrent value of the same. While this is welcome, there is this aspect of many immoral women who are seen increasingly using the prevailing rape laws to fulfill their ulterior motives. These women in many cases filed false cases of rape and linked the same to unwillingness on the part of their boyfriends or lovers to marry them later. But refusal to marry does not constitute rape. Rape can only be physically forcing a female to engage in sexual relations against her will and violating her chastity thereof. How can consensual sexual relationship or sex with consent on both sides between a male and female be judged as rape even if it is connected to a proven or unproven promise of marriage.

While accepting rape cases, law enforcers should be asked to investigate these matters to correctly ascertain whether actual rape has taken place or whether the apparently aggrieved female is motivated to make a male suffer by applying the rape lass because he would not succumb to her wishes. Indeed, there have been many cases of women resorting to blackmail and extortion of men by using the rape laws.

It has thus become imperative to carefully address these factors while going through amendments of the rape laws as were mentioned in the media. Rape laws must not be left as these are at the moment meaning leaving the same open for ‘discriminating against men.’