Appeals to the strengthening of justice: How can harassors be treated as heroes while women are related to fear?

While writing this, I’m still shaken. An eight-year-old girl is on the support of life after being raped-by a close relative, her fragile body that bears the inconceivable brutality she endured.

Before you can even process that horror, another title glitters on my news feed: a girl with broken tape disabilities in Cumilla. At this moment, I can’t help but wonder – could it be worse than what is happening in Bangladesh?

I am thinking of closing the news, moving away from the endless cycle of brutality, pretending for a moment that things are okay. But then reality tries me in front – nothing is good.

When I go on the street, I prepare for inevitable. Maybe someone will appear nowhere to tell me to adjust my scarf. Maybe – in the worst case – someone will clog me in a crowd and I will be too amazed to react. Even the next day, I was sitting in a restaurant, trying to have my lunch, but all I could think was the possibility of a self-righteous stranger to go out to question me why I was not a job.

Because in Bangladesh, the moral police is no exception – it is the norm.

Some call it paranoia, but allow me to ask – is it really? Women live in a constant fear, calculating each movement, guessing the environment secondly, wondering if they will do it at home without being followed, harassed or assaulted. And this fear was validated once again when a student of the Dhaka University was publicly humiliated – a man aggressively asked to “solve” his ornament.

If that wasn’t awful enough, which happened next was beyond understanding.

The author – a Bookbinder at the Du Central Library – was arrested and fired from the workplace. For a short moment, it was felt as justice. But justice is fragile in this country.

In a few hours, an angry self-proclaimed crowd “Touhidi Janata” stormed Shahbagh-no police station to ask for justice for women, but to ask for the release of the harasser. And exactly that, he left free. Not only that – he was welcomed as a hero, draped in flowers, holding a Qur’an.

I felt physically ill. Is that what I have become? Is that how we treat the harassrs now? With garlands and glorification?

Later, I learned that this type, the so-called “defender of morality” does not even follow the Islamic lifestyle. Nor his wife. And yet, he took it himself to correct complete foreigners about how they should dress. Hypocrisy is beyond disappointment – it is scary.

But here’s what is worse: this naive man probably does not even understand that the harassment of a woman, the police of her body, dictating the clothing, is not only unacceptable – it is harassment, complete stop. And neither the crowd that did not defend it. I wonder, what version of “self-invented” Islam follows these people, where harassed women is acceptable, but to rise for them is a crime?

For a second, I tried to understand how the victim could feel right now after receiving all the threats of death and rape from complete foreigners on the Internet. I couldn’t.

There were calls for the removal of the counselor for internal affairs, whose failure to ensure the safety of women was again naked. Women were not just angry; They were exhausted. Tired of seeing his trauma transformed into simple titles. Tired of living in a country where harassers are celebrated while victims are shameful. But to be honest – has something really changed?

Was the mentality of this country changed? Did we stop blaming women for violence committed against them? Did we stop justify harassment in the name of culture, religion or “protection” of morality?

Because how good are the protests when, tomorrow, another woman will be tightened in a bus, another girl will be harassed at her university, another child will be raped by a “reliable” relative – and society will continue to find: “What do we wear?” Or “Why was it so late?”

If the change would really happen, women would not be forced to wear pepper spray just to go home. If the change happened, we would not be to teach girls how to avoid being raped instead of teaching men not to rape. So I will ask again: Is something changed?

Or are we just waiting for the next tragedy to yell – before we silence again?

At this moment, I am exhausted. I do not care about the empty praises of the UN about how Bangladesh has obtained “extraordinary landmarks” in the empowerment of women. I do not care about glossy reports that boast of gender equality.

Because the harsh truth is that none of them matter if women are still raped, harassed and killed – while their abusers go free and are celebrated.

I don’t want to hear about progress while the eight -year -old girl is struggling for her life.

How can I want everyone a happy day of international women, when, in this country, being a woman simply feels like a life condemnation – a curse that we have never chosen, but are we obliged to endure every day?