On January 17th, 2010, the region of Brahmanbaria in Bangladesh shot to international attention. The region, with a relatively poor population of just over two million, sparked outrage internationally because of the treatment of a sixteen-year-old local rape victim at the hands of her town elders.
In April of 2009, the girl, whose name has been concealed for her safety, was raped by a local 20-year-old man named Enamul Mia. According to Bangladesh’s Daily Star, which broke the story, Mia used to regularly stalk and tease the girl on her way home from school. Fearing the consequences of speaking out, the girl kept the rape a secret. Her silence was broken when, seven months later, a medical test showed her to be pregnant and caused her marriage to another local man to be annulled.
Following her divorce and the abortion of the baby, the girl returned to her father’s house. A group of local elders, however, decreed that her family was to be isolated and punished. The leader of this group was named Manik Mia and is widely reported to have been related to the victim’s rapist. The date of January 17th was set for a castigation meeting in the yard of the family.
The punishment consisted of one hundred and one lashes with a form of whip and lasted for a number of hours. According to an eye-witness report, the young girl “collapsed and fainted” at one stage during the ordeal, only regaining consciousness after two hours.
Ten or more men had played “key roles” in the beating. The father of the family received a fine in addition to his daughter’s brutal and ruthless discipline.
Remarkably, the rapist in the case, a man more than four years older than the victim, remains unpunished. The village elders who carried out the retribution, which has been described as “torture” in Bangladesh and “wicked” by international Human Rights groups, say that were following religious edicts and did not call upon the man because he lived in a neighbouring village at the time.
At the time of writing, Human Rights groups in Bangladesh itself are working with the girl’s family to bring both those who remorselessly beat her and the rapist himself to justice. The local police chiefs
have said that if a charge is brought by the family, it will be investigated. This, however, would be unusual practice for a region that increasingly sees the law taken into people’s own hands.
The specific religious edict referred to by the head of the local elder group is often referred to as the “101 lashes fatwa”. It is a widely disputed piece of religious doctrine but has been used in a similar way to punish rape victims in other Muslim countries, most notably in a recent case in Saudi Arabia.
In that instance a Filipino woman, dubbed Camille by the media, was raped by a Saudi co-worker. Subsequent to the rape she also remained silent for fear of punishment until a doctor later discovered that she was pregnant. Following this discovery, she was jailed and lashed, suffering a miscarriage due to the harsh prison conditions. Saudi Arabia drew censure for the incident, which critics said showed the lack of distinction made between sex and rape outside of wedlock and a draconian interpretation of Islamic Sharia Law.
Perhaps the most fitting way to conclude is by quoting the 16-year-old Bangladeshi girl victim. She is said to have uttered these words after her beating, “Enamul has ruined my life, I want justice.”
