Bangladesh Outlaws Fatwas That Call For Flogging Of Rape Victims
The ruling comes on the heels of international outrage following the flogging in January of a 16-year-old rape victim. The girl was raped by a man four years her senior and tried to conceal it from her family and her village elders, but after she was hurriedly married to another man a medical exam revealed she was pregnant.
She was forced to have an abortion and her family was publicly shamed and ostracized from the village; the village elders, meanwhile, issued a religious fatwa and ordered her to be lashed 101 times. The girl eventually passed out from the pain.
Tragically, it took such an incident to bring awareness to the problem of Bangladeshi village elders issuing arbitrary fatwas against “criminals,” most of whom are women accused of adultery, having a child out of wedlock, or murky religious “crimes” such as associating with men or people of a different religion. These women are given outlandish punishments, from forced abortions and beatings to exile from their villages and the public shaming of their families.
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