Photo: shafiq islam/ drik news

Domestic violence is a less talked about form of repression that women suffer without ever protesting because it takes place away from public view. Women consider marriage as a bond that must be protected at all costs. In most cases, they go to unbelievable lengths to make that relationship durable in the face of all odds and atrocities that come their way. A broken marriage is very often attributed to the woman's failings. Most worryingly, women endure this mental and physical torture of husbands without uttering a word of protest because society's attitude towards women has never been anything very assuring.
In villages marriage is considered a sanctified bond united in the worst or best of times, in sickness or in health through the vicissitudes of fortune. But dowry related deaths have shattered that bond of happy and peaceful relationship. Reports published in a leading newspaper on October 26 said that Shaju Khatun (35), a housewife in Chuadanga, and Parvin Begum, an assistant teacher in a primary school in Bogra were killed for their failure to meet dowry demands. Such grim reports continue to pour in with every passing day.
A report released by the UN Population Fund revealed that 47% of adult women reported physical abuse by their male partners. According to human rights groups, there were 81 dowry-related killings during this year. Press reports indicate increasing incidences of vigilantism against women led by so-called religious leaders in rural areas. These include humiliating and painful punishments, such as whipping, of women accused of moral offences, which were hardly supported by factual investigation. According to police records, while there were 2,981 cases of dowry-related violence in 2004, the figure hit 4,563 in the first nine months of 2012.
Although many cases of dowry harassment were reported of late, a staggering number were not. Despite all attempts to prevent it, an epidemic appears to be in the making. It is a phenomenon that escapes easy answers due to complex mix of social trends. The sudden affluence of a section of people that emerged starting from the rural areas to the cities in the late '80s is the primary reason. The money, as social scientists say, was not channelised productively. With "get-rich-quick" becoming the new goal of life, dowry became the perfect instrument for upward material mobility. Growing consumerism, flashy life styles and in most cases joblessness and drug addiction are fueling these crimes. If once a bicycle, a wristwatch or some money for starting a business sufficed for the lesser income groups, nowadays, along with home appliances, a huge amount of cash money is included in the demand list.
What is most alarming are the edicts issued by some self-styled religious leaders and village "matubbars" that subject housewives and rape victims to trauma, humiliation and inhuman punishments on hearsay evidence and rumours floated in the locality by mischievous persons out of revenge based on long-standing family feud or property dispute or inability to meet dowry demands. A report published in a newspaper on October 3 said that Nurun Nahar Begum and her husband Moksedur Rahman of Dinajpur were subjected to lashing along with a fine of Tk.2 lakh by a local arbitration council meeting on the basis of a an unconfirmed report of adultery on the part of Nurun Nahar. Strangely, the alleged perpetrator was not asked to be present in the arbitration council meeting and it was more intriguing to learn that her husband was subjected to this lashing punishment also.
What happened in Mirersarai of Chittagong defies all human sensibilities. Here, the alleged perpetrators turned out to be the arbiters of justice. Mahfuzul Huq, a member of the local union parishad, the alleged perpetrator of sexual abuse on Asma Akhtar, arranged an arbitration council meeting on October 2, participated by some of his aides in the ruling party, and issued an edict that Asma be pelted with stones with her body put in a chest-deep hole in the ground for some unexplained sexual offences. The arbitration meeting was held following filing of a case by Asma against the perpetrators. She is now hiding to save her life. The Hon'ble High Court, after hearing a petition by Advocate Manzil Murshid on behalf of Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh, has summoned the officer-in-charge of Mirersarai Police Station and Mahfuzul Huq to appear before it on November 5 to explain their roles.
No Islamic law prescribes such dispensation of justice that punishes the victim and glorifies the offender. All these incidents and resultant sufferings expose the sordid side of police inaction as well as community leaders' legal standing and domain of trying offences of this nature.
It is so intriguing that every time such a horrendous crime is committed, the apex court has to issue rule on the administration saying that the administration has been failing to live up to people's expectation. In any case, the police and the civil administration can't evade the responsibility of the charges made against them.
True, crimes and criminality exist in every society, but sexual violation of women and even minors and patronage of the offenders by a section of influential persons and in most cases by the police manifests a sort of depravity which, unless checked, will tear apart the social fabric. It is not unusual in our country that every time such dastardly acts of sexual assault take place and fatwa-based salishes are held, people become naturally outraged and loud protests are voiced by all, especially by human rights activists. But, as it often happens, the alleged offenders and their patrons go away with impunity, and the perpetrators feel emboldened to commit crimes of greater enormity.
Criminologists and crime records bureau of the government and some NGOs assert that crime rate among the youth, especially deviant young husbands, has gone up alarmingly. The survey makes particular mention of the fact that there is a noticeable increase in dowry related crimes by young husbands and their families belonging to all strata of the society.
For women, it is a difficult battle to win. They are handicapped by history, victims of a firmly embedded gender system. Women face double peril. Inside the barred doors, it is humiliation. Outside, there awaits public ire. Harassed and tortured women are now going to court or police for protection. But even if appeals for protection are met, only scorn greets them when they return home. Despite every stigma, dowry continues to be the signature of marriage.
Unhappily, there exists an ambivalent attitude in a majority of the modern families who participate in dowry based marriages instead of opposing them. People talk glibly about dowry prohibition and anti-dowry movement but when it comes to the wedding of their own sons and daughters, most people would indulge in the vice themselves, too.
More intriguing, in most cases girls to be married off don't have any knowledge of or participation in the deal. Dowry is often a monetary deal between two parties -- the bride's father and the groom or his relations. Despite the promulgation of Acid Control Act 2002 and Dowry Prevention Act 1980, the number of dowry related violence is climbing. The law may help in taking temporary punitive action, but women will need real social and ideological support to stand firmly against an age-old system that has almost got an unwritten societal sanction.

The writer is a columnist of The Daily Star.
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