Taqbir Huda/Collected from Facebook
Today (19th August), a man hung himself to death from the beam of his balcony after he was gang raped by 10 men in Gazipur, Bangladesh.
The men had video recorded the rape incident and were blackmailing the victim to pay 2 lakhs to them if he didn’t want the video to be released.
This incident should prompt us to ponder about at least two issues.
Firstly, our society often considers rape to be the inevitable outcome of carnal male desire provoked by female temptation. Therefore, we say, if women just dressed ‘modestly’ and avoided travelling alone after dark, everything would be fine and dandy. However, when a grown man gets raped by 10 other men for extortion, where do these long held notions on rape stand?
Secondly, our law would not recognise the victim in this case to be a victim of rape, because our legal definition of rape excludes men (and Hijras too for that matter). After all, if rape can only be caused by female temptation how can someone who is not female be raped?
Let’s confront and deconstruct these difficult questions because if the societal mindset and the law are to change, our current discourse on rape must first be changed.
Taqbir Huda is a Research Specialist at Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust – BLAST