Editorial
Nari Samaj's Call
1997 was an annus mirabilis of sorts when it comes to repression against women. Out of 753 cases recorded, 517 were incidents of physical molestation which means more than one woman was raped or dishonoured a day in the year just gone. Such statistics which was revealed by a women's rights group - Sammilita Nari Samaj - in a press conference on Tuesday last, made for a chilling commentary on security of women in our society and calls for an attitudinal transformation on the part of the authorities and the think-tank in the government.
A particularly pertinent point that was driven home in this context was law makers' muddled thinking regarding crime against women. The government initiative to remove gender discrimination from the society epitomised in the Woman and Child Repression Act 1995 tends to lose its seriousness and sharpness due to authorities' tagging the terrorism related crime with the amendment.
We fully endorse Sammilita Nari Samaj's view on the matter. Repression against women, raping to be precise, has become too big a social evil to demand a law in its own right. This is all the more important in a country where over the years the members of the law enforcing agency have shown an increasing propensity to get involved in cases of repression against women. It ought to be remembered here that ours is a male dominated society and it simply does not have the sensitivity to emotionally accommodate the trauma and outrage a woman undergoes in a case of molestation. Naturally, if there is a want of sharply focused specific laws to deal with the cases chances are that this enormity will only increase. We feel there is no way the authorities can indulge in smug complacence over the matter. Unless a social battle armed with firm legal teeth can be started now our society runs the risk of being disintegrated.
It is a pity that in a country where the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition are women, such gross crimes against women are slowly becoming a way of life in Bangladesh. Only after, as some of the speakers observed, a consensus stemming from sensitivity to women has developed that things might look up.
And it cannot wait.
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