How legal failures and social taboos embolden intimate partner violence in Bangladesh

Illustration: TBS

Bangladesh has recently been rocked by numerous incidents of violence against women in the streets, with men resorting to aggression and harassment due to taking issue with women smoking in public or not dressing modestly. 

But dig deeper and you will find that violence against women is not limited to public spaces or by strangers only. Even at home, in the most intimate of surroundings, women are not safe — not even from their husbands.

Women in Bangladesh are three times more likely to be abused by and 14 times more likely to suffer sexual violence from their husbands than from others, according to a recent survey. 

One of the more disturbing revelations of the survey was that despite the prevalent sexual and physical abuse suffered by women from their intimate partners,  64% of them never speak up, and only 7% women take the step to seek legal aid.

Over half of all women surveyed (54%) have reported physical and sexual abuse by their husbands at some point in their marital lives.

The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Bangladesh held the 2024 Violence Against Women (VAW) Survey dissemination event on 27 February, in which they presented key findings from this new survey on intimate partner violence (IPV) in Bangladesh.

"We need serious training of the judges and police officers, who often do not know these laws or how to implement them. Furthermore, these are very sensitive cases, and women can often be put at risk once they file a case and wait for the verdict. If it is not handled properly, she may get attacked or killed during the process." Barrister Rashna Imam

Data from the survey, based on the 27,476 women who were interviewed, showed that not only is intimate partner violence widespread in the country, it is also stressed that IPV against women was more prevalent than non-partner violence, questioning whether the real focus should be on 'stranger danger' or danger at home.

This is a troubling fact, especially because there are laws in place to protect women from domestic abuse of such varieties. The Domestic Violence (Prevent and Protection) Act, established in 2010, aims to protect women from their partners from acts of physical, sexual, economic, and psychological abuse.

If a case is filed under this act, the victim can receive a temporary protection order, barring the potential abuser from being in the same vicinity as the victim. After the case has been reviewed, a full protection and restraining order can be issued against the abuser.

Barrister Rashna Imam explained that the failure of the legal system is one of the major reasons for why women do not seek help. 

"The Domestic Violence Act came into existence in 2010, and my experience with it was in 2020. A full 10 years had passed since the Act was established and the courts seemed clueless about it," she told TBS. 

"We need serious training of the judges and police officers, who often do not know these laws or how to implement them," Barrister Imam explained. "Furthermore, these are very sensitive cases, and women can often be put at risk once they file a case and wait for the verdict. If it is not handled properly, she may get attacked or killed during the process," she further added.

As Imam points out, the law has a long way to go before people can put their trust in it. Afterall, the concept of martial rape itself is not supported by the law yet. There is a public interest litigation that was filed when Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) challenged the definition of rape in court, but that case is still ongoing.

Even though the domestic violence law exists, implementation is weak, and for cases such as emotional abuse and controlling behaviour, it would be extremely difficult to prove within the current system.

Shahan Huda Ranjana, a human rights activist, explained, "You cannot trust the law in this country. No one gets punished. When Puja was raped, six different human rights organisations had to personally gather money and send it to her. She went through a harrowing process and now last month, her rapist was released on bail. Puja's dad is distraught and afraid for his daughter's life now. He fears retaliation from the rapist and regrets ever going after him legally."

Seeking legal help in cases of domestic violence is a traumatising experience where women have to relive their worst memories. However, according to Zobaida Nasreen, a professor of anthropology at Dhaka University, the very people they seek help from often discourage them or blow them off. 

"Women are often told that if they pursue a case, their husbands will just get married again, leaving them all alone," she said. 

These experiences have left women distrustful of the legal system.

The VAW survey surprisingly revealed that there was no great disparity between rural and urban communities when it came to violence against women. According to the study, 76% of women in rural areas and 75.6% in urban areas face IPV.

One of the biggest culprits is social taboos against seeking help or speaking out. Violence against women is so embedded within Bangladeshi society that many rural women do not seek help simply because they think their experience is normal.

For women in urban areas, humiliation is key to keeping them silent.

"In my experience, middle class and higher class women suffer from different forms of violence just as much as working class women, but they hide it far more," Ranjana explains. 

Nasreen agrees with the assessment, stating, "Middle and higher classes do not talk about it all because of perceived humiliation. For them, their image in society is extremely important to maintain. This shame is often used to keep them silent by their own friends and family."

Furthermore, NGOs often work in rural areas, seeking to empower working class women through dissemination of information. By focusing on schools and villages in rural areas, NGOs have been able to provide women in these areas to speak about the violence they suffer from with each other. But a lack of such directives in urban areas has led to a greater taboo about speaking about these things within middle class societies.

Ranjana believes that men need to be brought into the discussion on intimate partner violence, as they are the biggest perpetrators. "Women are taught to read the signs and defend themselves, etc, but this puts the onus on women. Unless we can teach our men to be better, women will always be on the defensive," explains Ranjana.

Surveys such as these have been instrumental in bringing the scope of the violence that women suffer at the hands of their intimate partners to limelight in a way it wasn't known before.

Masaki Watabe, Representative Ad Interim for UNFPA in Bangladesh, said, "Before the first survey in 2011, we had no comprehensive, nationally representative evidence on the prevalence of violence against women in Bangladesh. This prevalence survey made the invisible visible. It also served to dismantle the common perception of VAW as 'a private matter' by bringing to light the considerable social, economic and health costs of violence against women — turning it into a matter of national concern." 

BBS and UNFPA will submit a final report to the government, providing evidence-based and data-driven policy recommendations after consulting with multiple stakeholders. 

One can only hope that in the light of such detailed information, Bangladesh will take substantial measures to reform the legal systems and address the cultural taboos that enable intimate partner violence against women.