AGAINST the backdrop of increasing incidents of extra-judicial punishments inflicted on underprivileged women in the rural regions, leading to whipping and caning in the name of fatwa, the High Court (HC) has ordered the law enforcers and local government bodies to take immediate measures against such penalties. The HC’s order came after hearing a public interest litigation writ petition filed by women’s right groups.
The first incident of public humiliation under fatwa, a form of religious edit, came to light in 1993 from a village in Sylhet district, where a poverty-stricken young woman named Nurjahan was punished by dorra (whipping) because a local cleric issued a fatwa that her second marriage was not in conformity with religious injunctions. The woman, in her agony, committed suicide.
Since then, such type of atrocity against women in the garb of religious ruling has been spreading alarmingly in rural areas of the country. Many young women who had been subjected to such barbaric punishment for alleged sexual indiscretions committed suicide.
The frustrating part is that many villagers, instead of protesting or resisting, enjoy it as a show. It is not a long ago when there was social resistance against harassment of women. But very few people now feel obliged to protest such offences. It seems that some negative force is active in disturbing the polity that our rural people practiced for centuries.
We also heard of so many young girls committing in the recent past, only to have a respite from the incessant teasing. Trisa, Simi, Selina, Salma, Rumi, Fahima, Rini, Luna and Indrani are just the tip of the iceberg, about whom we have known through the media. They are a few in the long list of the teasing victims who were compelled to commit suicide.
The HC declared fatwa illegal in 2001. But the government, in order to appease the religious fundamentalist, appealed to the Appellate Division against the HC ruling, which issued a stay order. Sadly, no government did anything in the last eight years to vacate the stay order.
The HC laid down a set of guidelines in May to tackle sexual harassment of women in educational institutions, factories and workplaces. But no initiative has so far been taken by any concerned body to address the problem.
These ghastly crimes could not continue unabated if the law enforcers had not failed to deal firmly with such crimes. The HC has rightly expressed its indignation at the failure of the law enforcers in this regard.
The incidents of acid attack have decreased after the government tightened the laws. Stringent laws prescribing harsh punishments should be enacted to stop extra-judicial penalties. Police action has also to be more prompt as well as drastic, so that it acts as a real deterrence.
The silence of the rural society has also contributed to the increase of whipping of women under fatwa. Alongside the existing legal instruments, social deterrent must also be strengthened to protect the weaker section of people against the criminality of the tormentors. NGOs working in the rural areas should come forward to support the victims as they belong to poor families who are unable to fight legal battles against the tormentors.
There are at least a dozen organisations, including some NGOs, that have been working for socio-economic and political emancipation of women in the country. And yet the truth staring us in the face is that emancipation of women exists only in theory, not in practice.
Ruthless whipping to punish women under fatwa is certainly a slap on the face of our civilized society. It is accelerating our journey back to medievalism in one hand and undermining the country’s existing justice delivery system on the other.
It is now imperative for the government to go for tough actions against the elements running their own system of justice based on misinterpretation of religious ethos. The government’s apathy in tackling these elements, who are masked under religious cover, has emboldened the fatwa mongers.
Though the government takes pride for the modest progress it made in empowering the women, oppression to women is an area that has permeated all pores of success. Whipping under fatwa, throwing of acid, and setting on fire, still remain as weapons to punish young women for unrequited love or spurned marriage proposal. It is much to the discredit of the government.
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