Why Penal Code provision should not be gender neutral: HC
The High Court today sought an explanation from the government about the regulation of Bangladesh Penal Code that only considers male committing rape on female.
The court issued a rule asking the respondents to show cause in four weeks why they should not be directed to amend Section 375 of the Penal Code that contains this provision in a gender neutral manner.
Secretaries to the ministries of law and home affairs and inspector general of police have been made respondents to the rule.
The HC bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Khizir Hayat issued the rule after holding a writ petition hearing filed seeking its order on the government to amend the relevant section.
Dr Soumen Bhowmick, a social worker; Tasmia Nuhaiya Ahmed, Supreme Court lawyer; and Dr Masum Billah, director of human rights organisation 'Empowerment through Law of the Common People collectively submitted the petition as a public interest litigation to the HC on January 14 last year, requesting it to order the government to amend section 375 of Bangladesh Penal Code incorporating the word "person" in place of the word "woman" in the section.
In the petition, they also urged the HC to ask the law ministry to form a committee consisting lawyers and civil society members to submit a report on the progress of amending Section 375 of the Penal Code to the court.
Under section 375 of the Penal Code, only if a woman is sexually assaulted by a man it is treated as rape, they said in the petition, adding that the female victims can seek justice for the offence under this provision of the Penal Code.
But, there is no provision in the section for treating the violation of males as an offence and therefore, the male victims have no scope for getting justice and remedy under the provision, they said.
During hearing today, writ petitioners' lawyer Tapas Kanti Baul told the HC that Section 375 of the Bangladesh Penal code only considers male committing rape on female and peno-vaginal mode as rape.
The present situation of Bangladesh and article 27 of the constitution suggest that section 375 should be gender neutral as it will enable the state to investigate sexual assault crimes committed by men upon men, women upon women, men or women upon transgenders or male child, he argued.
The lawyer also said the definition of rape should also include all sorts of penetration, not only peno-vaginal penetration.
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