From The Daily Star: Bangladesh
The High Court yesterday ordered district officials in Shariatpur to explain why they failed to protect 14-year-old rape victim Hena from being whipped to death as per a fatwa on Monday.
The deputy commissioner, the superintendent of police of Shariatpur and the thana nirbahi officer of Naria upazila -- where the incident took place--will have to report to the HC in 15 days how it happened although the court (HC) had eight months ago declared fatwa illegal and a punishable offence.
[snip]
The reports said Hena was raped by her 40-year-old relative Mahbub on Sunday. Next day, a fatwa was announced at a village arbitration that she must be given 100 lashes. She fell unconscious after nearly 80 lashes.
Fatally injured Hena was rushed to Naria health complex where she succumbed to her injuries.
Supreme Court lawyer Seema Zahur yesterday placed before the HC bench a press report on the incident on behalf of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association.
If the above story gets a wider audience in this country there will no doubt be an outcry of how primative and ruthless it is for such a thing to happen. Fingers will be pointed by the good Christian men and speeches and articles will be written about the evils of Islam and its self-appointed men of Allah who would encourage such a barbaric thing to happen. There will be tut tutting over the lack of a strong government to suppress such heinous acts from a barbaric and backward citizenry.
The irony will fly right over their heads.
With our shiny new Republican House of Representatives we've entered a brand new world, or rather, the old world of the Middle Ages when any shameless act performed by a man was really a woman's fault and that woman should be the one publicly shamed, humiliated, physically punished, killed for their heinous act of existing to tempt them.
Everyone knows that men are not responsible for their behavior. Everyone knows that young girls are temptresses and older women are harlots. Surely, if a woman gets pregnant, she was asking for it and the man bears no responsibility whatsoever. Therefore women should be punished for whatever a man does.
But once whatever loathsome act is finished, it then becomes every man's responsibility to see that woman does the Godly thing. Men cannot be held responsible for being led astray by temptations of the flesh, but they're responsible for making sure a woman is punished for that temptation, whether willing or not.
Republicans are fond of using the "slippery slope" canard in their efforts to suppress anything that doesn't fit into their sharply drawn morality box.
- Marijuana is a "Gateway" drug to promiscuity!
- Sex education leads to children having sex!
- Condom distribution and birth control encourages sex among teens and drug users!
- Family planning leads to abortions!
- Planned Parenthood lures women to kill their innocent babies!
But what about the slippery slope of stripping women of their right to self determination? That doesn't count, especially if there is a clump of new cell growth involved. That clump of new cells has rights that trump those of the host that carries it, right up to the moment it makes its way out into the bright light of day, when we can then turn to ignoring its needs, especially if it happens to be female.
For nearly 40 years women have had to defend the hard-won victory of Rowe vs. Wade. Every election cycle brings a new crop of men forward who chip, chip, chip away at a woman's right to have control over her own body, her own life. For 40 years women like me have had to get up and don our protective armor to ward off those who would dominate us and to protect this right for ourselves, for our daughters, for our granddaughters.
And here we are yet again, this old, tired group of women who have lobbied, protested, fought for young women to get in the door of places that yes, offer safe abortions, but also offer sex education, family planning, birth control and medical care for the woman who wants to insure that the baby she's carrying to term will be healthy. How much fight do we have left in us? Who will step up to take our place when we're gone?
Perhaps what our new Congress should do is just cut straight to the chase. Put through a law that if a young girl or a woman finds herself in need of abortion, we'll just go straight to the fatwa and be done with it. It will take out all this pesky and tiresome argument over whether a rape is sufficiently brutal enough to really be rape. Stop all this birth control nonsense, stop all this foolishness about women having the right to determine what happens to their own bodies. Let's just state flat out that women are evil temptresses that cannot be trusted to be around decent, hardworking men and that whatever degradation they lead a man into must be punished with whipping or stoning until they're dead.
Instead of just chipping away at settled law of nearly 40 year's duration, let's just go to the endgame and let the beatings and the stonings begin.
We are all Bangladeshis now.