APPEAL || OVERVIEW:

Civilians, especially women, children, the elderly and the disabled are often the victims of violence during times of conflict, which range from armed international or civil wars to state-sponsored or state-condoned human rights violations against political, racial, ethnic, national or religious minorities. Especially, women are prone to suffer the worst kind of human rights abuses in nation-building processes and they are either silent or silenced by state historiography.

Women are usually targeted based on the religious, ethnic, racial, national and/or other political affiliations. Rape is the most common form of violence against women in political conflicts, which is now considered a war crime. Mass rapes of women have been documented over the last decades in East Pakistan/Bangladesh, Cambodia, Haiti, Peru, Somalia, Uganda, Bosnia and Rwanda.

The civil war of 1971 between the East and West Pakistan culminated into a war of national liberation which created Bangladesh. Loss of life during the war (excluding natural disasters) range from 200,000 to 1.5 million; the government of Pakistan claiming that 100,000 non-Bengalis were killed prior to the military intervention (The New York Times, August 12, 1971). Dislocation and displacement of the number of refugees vary. The government of Pakistan cited 2 million whereas the Indian estimate is 10 million. The United Nations and the World Bank estimates supported the Indian figure (The New York Times, October 17, 1971). Estimates on refugees were more accurate since they were issued ration cards or placed within camps in India. At any rate, a displacement of between 10 to 20 percent of East Pakistan’s estimated 75 million occurred during the crisis.

The strategic use of rape as a genocide tactic makes the 1971 war a particular case study of gendercide and rape as a war-crime During the conflict an estimated number of 200,000 Bengali women were raped by soldiers with an estimated number of 25,000 forcefully impregnated.

The official history of 1971 narrates the political and military struggle which finally gave birth to a nation-state for the Bengalis. Its birth was invested with the expectations of a citizenry without whose sacrifice it could not have come into existence. However, due to the continuous political turbulence in the country, those expectations remain as elusive as ever. Bangladesh has yet to achieve social justice and an inclusive internal identity, even after more than 32 years of independence. The political, social and cultural movements that often evoke 1971 give importance to the heroes or the anti-heroes of the national struggle. However, more than anything else the story of 1971 was the experience of the common people of Bangladesh and their struggle.

Little material exists on women’s experiences of 1971. Except for minor references mainly based on statistics, stories of women remained virtually ignored. Most women quietly slipped away in the folds of history. These are the women who were left to take care of their families, the aged and the infants, when the men went to fight the war; women freedom-fighters who fought alongside with the men in the war; women who supported the freedom-fighters by providing them with food, medicine and taking care of the wounded which often led to their own incarceration by the Pakistani army or the Razakaars (collaborators); and finally, women who were raped either in their homes or taken to rape camps for repeated rapes and forced impregnation.

Birangona was the term introduced by the first Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to acknowledge the sacrifice of women for the freedom of Bangladesh in 1971. The literal translation of the word is ‘war heroine’. The term had been originally intended to honour all women, the political activists, the freedom-fighter women, rape survivors and so on who participated in the national struggle. For example, the proposal brought before the parliament to commiserate the death of one Awami League MP, Badrunnessa Ahmed, also described her as a Birangona (Kamal, ASK report, 2001: 18). However, the term was more commonly used to identify women who were subjected to rape and sexual violence during the war.

Traditionally, women are visible only as victims of the war story. But beyond the powerlessness of victimhood the 1971 war has seen women come out, mobilize resistance and confront the Pakistani army. Women participated in the guerrillas warfare either as formal soldiers or as loose-knit defense and paramilitary units. They have emerged as agents of political transformation. Many women combatants were also subjected to sexual abuse.

In our funding campaign, with the help of Ain-O-Shalish Kendro we have identified seven such women who fall under one or more of the categories of war affected women. Please check on the profiles to read additional information on each of them.

>> Bina D'Costa
>> June, 2003