Until the violence stops

There’s a banner that they hang on the chicken wire outside our elementary school campus starting every February that says, in big bold letters: ‘V-DAY UNTIL THE VIOLENCE ENDS’. I don’t remember a single year that they’ve missed to hang that banner and I think they will be hanging that banner for a good number of Februaries to come simply because the violence, although mitigated, has no signs of ceasing to exist.

 Every year, thousands of women and girls are victims of violence against women. ‘Thousands’ may perhaps be an understatement but the number doesn’t really matter anymore because whether it’s just one woman who has to bear another day of being bruised or a group of girls being prostituted, at the end of the day there still are victims and perpetrators of a crime that’s probably worse than murder.

 I chanced upon an article that my boss forwarded to me one afternoon about a 14-year-old Bangladeshi girl who was lashed to death. Bangladesh is one of those highly traditional and patriarchal societies where one can consider a woman truly blessed if she has lived a full life unscathed.

 Let’s call the girl Fatima. Fatima and her close friend used to walk home after school every afternoon and that’s when her friend’s uncle, let’s call him Mahmoud, slowly took an interest in her. Fatima complained to her sister that Mahmoud was starting to harass her but her sister waived it off, thinking that a middle-aged man like Mahmoud had better things to do than to trouble himself with a 14-year-old girl.

 One night, Fatima went out to buy something at a nearby store when Mahmoud attacked her and raped her in the bushes near his home. One of their neighbors who witnessed the crime reported both Fatima and Mahmoud to the authorities where, under the judgment of Sharia Law, Fatima was immediately charged with adultery with Mahmoud, a married man, and both were sentenced to suffer 100 lashes. Her parents tried to object, reasoning out that the girl wasn’t even old enough to get married!

 Helpless in the face of the authorities, Fatima faced her judgment and dropped at 70 lashes. Mahmoud was able to escape. When her parents brought her to the hospital in their town, the hospital simply released their findings that Fatima died of suicide with no physical injuries. They took her took her body to another hospital at distant city where they were able to get the correct findings of her autopsy. Mahmoud was never found. Fatima died a hapless victim, falsely accused, justice never served. The perpetrator remains at large.

 Fatima’s story is only one of the many, many cases of violence that continue to happen today and her world is only one among many that continue to exist—hell holes for women who supposedly have a great potential at a better life and a brighter future had the circumstances been entirely different.

 Fatima’s story reveals a very ugly truth: that although we live in a world that prides itself for highly advanced thoughts and global partnerships set to fight for human rights, many societies which perpetuate a culture of violence against women continue to exist both in the developed and developing worlds, but so much more in the latter.

Where and how that particular attitude in such societies developed from is beyond me but I know one thing that’s for sure: if the world’s poorest countries and societies are hell bent on finally moving forward and providing a better future for their people, they need to unleash the potential of their women and this begins by treating their women as living, breathing human beings—not as disposable objects.