Rape victims suffer as justice delayed
In 2016, when Tumpa (not real name) was five years old, her friend's father, 42-year-old Md Saiful Islam lured her away. He tied her up, taped up her eyes and mouth, stuffed corks up her nostrils, put out cigarettes on her skin, and mutilated her in various parts, including her genitals.
This happened in Dinajpur's Parbatipur.
Tumpa, who is now eight, lives not only to tell the tale but also wage a battle at court.
However, this child, who had undergone the most monstrous torture imaginable, is yet to see the light of justice.
Almost four years on, the case is still in the stage of collecting witness testimonials to supplement the injury marks that Tumpa bears to this day.
"She suffers from incontinence as a result of her injuries and goes to school with rags stuffed in her pants while the court is still taking witness testimonies," stated Zeenat Ara Haque, executive coordinator of WE CAN Alliance to End Domestic Violence, Bangladesh, while speaking at a seminar on why rape case trial completions exceed the 180-day limit set by the High Court.
The seminar was held at The Daily Star centre yesterday and organised by WE CAN Alliance to End Domestic Violence, Bangladesh.
For nearly all rape survivors, the December 2016 High Court ruling that rape cases must be concluded within a maximum of 180 days is still a pipe dream.
"If the concerned court fails to do so, a report must be provided to the Supreme Court explaining why this happened," she added.
"A further HC ruling from 2019 notes that the perpetrators of rape cases are desperate and reckless, and they threaten the family of the victim from pursuing justice. The ruling observes that in certain cases village social courts are arranged to settle the matter and prevent the victim from seeking legal reparations. To this end, the court observed the need for a witness protection law," said Haque.
Even highly publicised cases like that of the Noakhali Subarnachar gang rape have not seen any conviction in nearly two years, noted Advocate Golam Akbar, additional public prosecutor at the Noakhali Judge Court.
"There have been as many as 15 hearings to hear the testimonies of 24 witnesses. Each time the case has to be heard, the judge clears the day to give it adequate time but the caseload of the court decides the hearing dates," said Akbar.
Md Golam Kibria, senior district judicial magistrate and teacher at Judicial Administration Training Institute, noted that it is not possible to expedite the process without more courts and more judges.
"Each tribunal has between 1,500-2,000 such cases at any given time. A judge can only hear about a hundred cases a month. Make it such that a judge has only 500 cases or less," he said.
While it was not possible to get the exact number of rape cases pending before the tribunals of the 54 Women and Children tribunals across the country, a project called Justice Audit Bangladesh made some projections in 2018.
The GIZ-run project collected data of pending cases from 2015-2018, and made individual projections for each tribunal for years 2019 to 2022.
According to their projections, 42 percent of the cases in 2020 were pending cases, with similar numbers projected for 2021 and 2022.
The project surmised that Kushtia's Women and Children tribunal had the most number of pending cases this year, at nearly 70 percent.
The problem however is not just in the caseload of the courts, but also in the investigation process and the lawyers, said speakers.
Former director of National Human Rights Commission Dr Mizanur Rahman questioned, "Do the investigating officers stick to the investigation timeframe?"
"The medical report gets delayed because the one-stop crisis centre is only available in certain areas," said Farhana Afroze, additional attorney general of the Supreme Court. According to the Judiciary Portal of Bangladesh, there are 6 OCCs to service 65 districts.
Speakers also said that if the case extends for over 180 days, judges may be more inclined to provide bail to the accused.
"The accused often escapes. The investigating officer then has to find the accused on top of continuing the prosecution of the case," said Afroze.
"Many of the victims come from lower socio-economic backgrounds with temporary addresses. It becomes very difficult to track them down to continue a case," she added.
Afroze however said that the lengthy wait-times are a deterrent for survivors to seek justice to begin with. "They think that it will be years before the case is cleared by the Apellate Division so why bother filing a case."
As speakers spoke about lawyers and witnesses not showing up on court dates, they pointed out that the 2019 HC ruling also stated that if important witnesses such as magistrates, police, doctors and other experts do not appear before courts to provide their testimonies, departmental action may be taken against them, and if need be, their salaries can be stalled.
"Witnesses of all types need to be remunerated for their time. This is especially for retired police officers who show up for cases by spending out of their own pocket," said Golam Kibria.
"Going through the legal process re-traumatises the survivor," said Mahfuza Mala, programme coordinator of gender justice and social inclusion at Oxfam Bangladesh.
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