Legal Ambiguities in Rape Trails
A rape victim’s journey towards justice is quite far from easy in our country. The ordeal that they have to go through to prove their cases is nothing less than fighting a battle.
“The ‘shameless’ victim of the ‘shameful’ offence” an article by Taslima Yasmin informs us about the laws and regulations that a rape victim has to go through in order to prove that she was indeed raped and is not accusing an “innocent” victim.
The courts in the subcontinent legalizes the concept that, a rape victim’s testimony is enough in order to convict the victim. But in Bangladesh, things are handled pretty differently, only the testimony of the victim does not prove that she was indeed abused.
Ms. Yasmin writes in her article, the court requires evidence from a rape victim.
The complainant needs to go through DNA tests, surveying test; where her body is being checked thoroughly for scratch marks, injury or resistance and until April 12th 2018, the “two finger test” was also done.
The two finger test usually known as the virginity test was conducted by the doctors to the rape victims for inspection. It was just recently banned by the High Court on April 12th, 2018 after a writ was filed in 2013 by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust, Ain o Salish Kendra, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, Naripokkho, Brac, and Manusher Jonno Foundation.
Apart from the tests the victims have to go through a lot of stereotypes that makes her journey towards justice even more difficult. The level of difficulties rises if the victim is a married woman, belongs from a poverty stricken family or is older. In these cases, it is often assumed that the women have “consented” to the sexual intercourse.
In the article, Yasmin mentioned that, recently, there were cases where the accused blamed the victim of belonging from a “lower strata of the society” or a woman of “ill-repute”.
She concludes her article on a good note mentioning our Supreme Court has often taken pro-victim approach and let many rape cases be lead on the testimonies of the victims.
The loopholes in our law system are something to be addressed. A consultation meeting was held in Daily Star by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) with the support of SHOKHI project on the use of character evidence in rape trails in Bangladesh.
Section 155(4) of The Evidence Act, 1872 states that “when a man is prosecuted for rape or an attempt to ravish, it may be shown that the prosecutrix was of generally immoral character.”
The prosecutrix here is usually a female victim for whom the court is prosecuting the accused.
“We are all agreed on the fact that Section 155(4) should be repealed. The judges in court can play a vital role to protect a rape survivor from being asked humiliating questions during rape trial,” said justice Nizamul Haque.
Nurunnahar Osmani, Member of the National Human Rights Commission-Bangladesh, stated that, “The issue of consent should be the main concern in rape trials. Adducing character evidence in courts in such trials is completely irrelevant.”
The legal aftermath of rape cases in Bangladesh is quite a difficult route for a victim.
Articles’ by Daily Star here & here
For the article by Dhaka Tribune, click here
