Md. Emran Hossain Murad : What is right to one may be wrong to another. What is right to one may be wrong to none, or what is right to one may either be right, humanitarian and philanthropic to some or be wrong, inhumanitarian and misanthropic to some. Or somebody’s right, want, hope, and desire may be the most crucial question for some who most strikingly need to have right, want, hope and desire; right, want, hope, and desire for a decent, logically fair and sustainably survivable life.
Somebody who is desperately destitute may not have want, hope and desire until and unless s/he is ensured his/her humane fundamental rights. However, somebody, who has already been ensured his or her human rights up to an accountable extent, should work for ensuring others. S/he should not indulge in designing and scheming ways to siphon the things that are primarily destined to fill up the emergent needs of the people socially, mentally and naturally struggling against all upcoming disasters only to live decently. On the other hand, somebody who is verily well-off and favourably solvent should not plan to siphon things aimed to aid the people, who are greatly and devastatingly needy.
Today, Shakila’s departed soul is thinking why the empiricists had not contributed any theory to stand those marginally destitute people who are like her. Born in a remote village under Borguna district, Shakila passed her SSC exam in 2007 and got admittance in a college in arts group. Her family consisted of her mother, one younger brother, one younger sister and her father who was a landless day-labourer. Details of her marriage with a rickshaw-puller living in the village next to hers were under negotiation by the help of a match-maker.
All on a sudden, Sidr, a traumatic natural, and certainly physical disaster for her, visited the area. She got her father dead and her mother badly injured. She, her younger brother, sister and her wounded mother, surviving with great difficult and intolerable hardships, had reserved food to support them only for two days and passed the 3rd, 4th and 5th days by drinking only tremendously polluted water. In the evening of the 5th day, Sujon, a 20 year-old saucy son of her neighbor, took her to his home and gave some food for her family.
Three days later, he came in the afternoon, and informed her that his father had gone to the house of the elected member (subordinate to union chairman) of the locality to bring relief goods and asked her to go to his home about three hours later to take some for her family and went away. When she reached there, he took her to his room, ravished her and finally let her go with a reasonable amount of relief goods; reasonable amount because his father was a well-off farmer and had been collecting relief goods by the name of her family.
Physically and mentally disappointed, she returned home and served her family members with the relief goods. Three months later, her belly started swelling and she sensed that she had been impregnated. Finding no way out to get rid of her physical and mental disaster, she committed suicide, the causes of which eternally unknown to the earth except the one who, with great malicious taste and pleasure, planned, designed, schemed, forced and finally succeeded in rapaciously putting in his greedy, hungry and hot claws to devastate and corrupt her virginity.
Today Bangladesh is suffering another remarkable natural disaster. She has been tormented by BDR carnage, desperate activities of students political organizations in different educational institutions especially in public universities, unhelpful activities and indecisive threat by the transport workers especially by auto-rickshaw drivers, uncontrollable haphazardness in supplying the electricity, insolvable problems in supplying pure drinking water especially in Dhaka city, so many times threat by the main opposition party and finally crisis in negotiation with India on Tipai Mukh Dam, partly Farak dam and Asian High Way which puts the people under the threat of national security and sustainable independence.
Now, another time for protecting human rights and women rights has come with the visiting of Aila, the second warning for further crucial attack on Bangladesh in future by much more strong and disastrous cyclone with gushing of tidal upsurge. The government and the people involved in distributing relief goods in the affected areas should be highly careful of these factors.
Thus, innumerable girls and women are being victims of unexpected situations, being violated of their fundamental rights, even losing their lives leaving behind this beautiful and glamorous earth forever, let alone their social respect and security in daily life both in home and work-place. The preplanned rape and afterwards attempt in killing a garments worker in the jungle-like bushy area at the back side of Mir-Musharraf Hossain Hall in Jahangirnagar University further blunt our memory and urge to take all possible steps to warn, threat, and punish the culprits along with ensuring all kinds of women rights, safety and security, and developing our sympathy.
The physical torture and torment of female students in different universities, mostly including University of Dhaka and Jahangirnagar University remind us of the condition of safety and security of girls and women in our country. Innumerable events of torture and murdering of housewives by husbands and their relatives in our country for demanding and extorting dowry, provision etc from bridegrooms’ house are being reported everyday in the national dailies. Who is yonder to stand by them?
No possible punishment has ever been in our country to stop the violation of human rights and especially women’s. After the completion of rape and killing of the victims, there remains rules and laws to punish the accused; and most strikingly the truth and unexpected reality in our country is that the accused, in most of the cases, are freed for lack of enough and definite proof, witness etc., or they succeed in establishing a compromise either by giving threat, showing power, bribing the police officer officer in-charge, or by buying the village big-wigs, who generally settle those cases. Nevertheless, not enough measures are here in our country to ensure that no such crimes and mishappenings are dared.
Another devastating feature in the punishment system in our country is that a girl who is raped is never treated with sympathy and affection but always with dislike and sometimes with hatred. She is never respected in the family and community as she was before. She finds herself at the centre of public chats and jeers. If she tries to punish the culprit by going and informing the police station, the policemen mentally rape her there again. Nonetheless, she does not easily get medical certificate to prove her accusation.
If she is unmarried, she cannot hope of getting her honour and respect in the society and thereby, is not liked by any good man to marry her. Once a girl’s life is scandalized, she is forever disrespected, disliked, treated a problem for other good people in the locality, and never hope of a better and happy life. Throughout her whole life, she is doomed to suffer and tolerate the agony with no chance of recovery and rehabilitation. That’s why; she is compelled to choose between suffering and suicide.
We, the conscious people of the country and the government should come forward with a view to solving the problem by raising awareness among the public, taking steps to ensure exemplary punishment to the accused, and finally enabling all people to work strongly for stopping violating human rights and especially women’s rights.
