Causes & Impacts of Eve Teasing in Bangladesh Perspective

Causes & impacts of Eve Teasing in Bangladesh perspective

Abstract:

This paper discusses the real picture of Eve teasing in Bangladesh. Now-a-days Eve teasing has become one of the severest problems of Bangladesh. It severely infringes the freedom and right of mobility of a woman, 90% girls between the ages of 10-18 are affected by eve teasing. It has reached to such an alarming situation that many girls committed suicide in the last three years due to eave easing. Many female students are forced to stay at home giving up their studies. Parents are marrying off their school and college going daughters in order to avoid this horrible situation. No government initiatives to tame teasers have proven effective so far.

This article tries to identify the causes of eve teasing and its impact on Bangladeshi societies. This article further suggests some solutions for eradicating eve teasing in Bangladeshi societies from an Islamic perspective.

Key Words: Eve teasing, causes, Impact, Society of Bangladesh, Solution.

Introduction:

Eve teasing stands for a kind of sexual harassment of a young woman. At present it has become a big problem in Bangladesh. Most of the girls could not walk on the streets without being teased by an opposite sex. Many girls committed suicide as a result of eve teasing. Many female students stopped their studies and even going outdoors. It is a horrible scenario in Bangladesh.

When we study the causes behind the occurrences of eve teasing in Bangladesh, we find several reasons. Lack of religious education, unmindful about religion, unfair dress, open sky culture, absence of family educations etc. have big role in creating this problem in our society. We observed that many places in Bangladesh like street, market, school, college, university, office, entertainment spots are not safe for a woman especially young girl. Eve teasing is fully prohibited by Islam. There is no scope for doing eve teasing in Islam. Islam treated eve teasing as a serious offense. Islam considers eve teasing a crime which is punishable not only in this world but also in the life hereafter.[Aminul Hoque, Md. (2012)]

Definition of Eve-teasing:

The meaning of the word "eve" is 'First woman in bible: in the Bible, the first woman created by God, and Adam's companion in the Garden of Eden' [Microsoft Encarta 2007]. And the meaning of "tease" is 'to laugh at somebody and make jokes about them, either in a friendly way or in order to annoy or embarrass them'[Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 8th Ed]. According to Encarta, the 'eve-teasing' is the harassment of young woman [Microsoft Encarta 2007]. According to Wikipedia, ‘eve teasing’ is a euphemism used in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal for public sexual harassment, street harassment or molestation of women by men. [Wikipedia 2012] The term ‘Eve teasing’ is used to refer to sexual harassment of women in public places such as the streets, public transportation, parks, beaches, and cinema halls. This type of a public harassment by alone man or gangs of women includes such as verbal assaults such as making passes or unwelcome sexual jokes: nonverbal assaults such as showing obscene gestures, winking, whistling, and staring; and physical assaults such as pinching, fondling and rubbing against women in public places. In addition, several instances of eve teasing have been followed by more violent assaults such as rape and murder.[1]Eve teasing acts as a control on most women by censoring their general mobility in and accessibility to public spaces, thereby affecting their sense of personhood and security. It heightens feelings of dependency on men for protection even though some women may be economically or emotionally independent. It often adds to the traumas experienced in other spaces, be it other work places or in the domestic sphere, making the experience of male violence a rather seamless and everyday affair. Women too internalize the idea that eve teasing is normal, harmless and often deserved[2]. However, in our country, Eve-teasing was a means to disturb young women as light matter up to a certain period of time. But now it has taken a tremendous shape of sexual harassment for a female counterpart by its male counterpart. Using filthy languages, movement of body in various ways and whistling are some of the ways to disturb young girls. Some people believe that practical sex is also eve-teasing this may be either willful or by force. Now-a-days many people believe that there is no difference between eve-teasing and sexual act. The word eve teasing is usually used when a female is harassed on the streets or pavements. On the contrary, the word sexual harassment is used when it takes place at offices, houses or any other barricaded places [Ashraful Alam,2010]

Eve-teasing in Bangladesh:

Eve-teasing is a recent phenomenon in Bangladesh focused thorough media in 1990s. But the cases were a few and countable. Now a days particularly around two thousands of the incidents of eve-teasing occurred here there and every where it have become rampant. No media and news paper now are without the silly news of eve-teasing everyday. A research has shown that 91.3% women are victim of eve-teasing either this way or that way, out of these 87% incidents go to the age level of 10 to 18 years. 60% women are eve-teased by mobile miss call and sexy massages. Some are adversely affected by internet pornography and the percentage of this group is 10.8%. This fact was found out by Bangladesh National women Lawyer association. They prepared a document containing 1000 women of 10 to 15 years age group to know about the eve-teasing situation. [Research of BNWLA, Daily Prothom Alo, 2010] Recent surveys of 512 educational institutions of 64 districts of Bangladesh show 62% school girls are victims of eve-teasing. Another research shows 87% girls of schools and colleges become victim of eve-teasing while they go to their school-college and back. Action Aid Bangladesh found that 41% girl students do not find their campus saves from eve-teasing. 63.6% students say many teachers are involve in eve-teasing activities. 38.1% students say they know about many eve-teasing victims caused by teachers. [Statistics of Child Parliament, Daily Amar Desh, 2010] Bangladesh National Lawyer association has given another statistic that in 2006 there are 24 stories of eve-teasing in various newspapers, 20 in 2007, 39 in 2008, 54 in 2009, 52 in 2010 [Najneen Akhter, Daily Janakontha, 2010]. But Odhiker has reported in 2011 there are 672 incidents of eve-teasing. According to Odhiker report there were 129 incidents in 2010 [Odhikar, 2010]. Above statistics clearly show that the incident of eve-teasing are alarmingly increasing year by year.