AMID the flash flood and imminent landslide risk, reported incidents of rape and rape attempts are an added concern for the national minorities living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. A rape and two cases of rape attempts were filed in the three hill districts in August 22–23. A group of Bengali men on August 22 dragged an elderly woman and her daughter out of the house at Ramgarh, Khagrachari, and raped her in a banana plantation while the daughter managed to run away. A case was filed and the rape survivor was sent to hospital for medical examination. The process to file the case and medical examination took almost two days and none of the named accused has so far been arrested. The officer-in-charge of Ramgarh said that flooding was delaying the arrest, but assured that they would ensure justice. In separate incidents in Rangamati and Bandarban, attempted rape of minority women by Bengali men was reported and local people played a proactive role in ensuring that the perpetrators were arrested. The law enforcement agencies as well as the district administration must provide women wotj security with attention in ensuring relief distribution in flood-hit areas.
Violence against ethnic minority women in the hill districts, however, is a persisting concern. The Parbatya Chattogram Jana Samhati Samiti reported that 12 women and children from ethnic communities were raped, seven were victims of attempted rape and several women and children faced abduction and trafficking attempts in 2023. Women’s organisations, meanwhile, expressed their disappointment at the different treatment of victims of sexual violence from ethnic minority communities. In addition to the habitual delay in recording cases and arresting the perpetrators, a Kapaaeng Foundation report in 2022 talked about how perpetrators exert pressure and even bribe doctors for negative medical reports. Ethnic minority women are also subjected to further state surveillance and violence, as evident in the rape and sexual assault of two Marma sisters in Rangamati in January 2018. Two teenage Marma sisters were allegedly raped and sexually assaulted by security forces at Bilaichari in Rangamati. The system has been patriarchal and intimidating towards victims of sexual violence, but it gets even more hostile towards ethnic minority women which should not be the case. A rape is a punishable offence, irrespective of the ethnic and class identities of perpetrators.
The government must, therefore, consider women’s security concerns in planning flood relief and shelter plans. Considering the political history of the hill districts and unresolved issues of national minorities, it is high time that the government took steps to ensure justice for victims of sexual violence there. In order to ensure a congenial environment for ethnic minority women to seek justice, the government should take the allegation of discriminatory treatment of victims seriously.
