Worth a Thousand Words: Bina D’Costa Tracked Down the Australian Doctor Who Performed Late-Term Abortions on 1971 Rape Survivors. Image Credit: BDNews
The post- Liberation War generation of Bangladesh know stories from 1971 all too well. Our families are framed and bound by the history of this war. What Bangladeshi family has not been touched by the passion, famine, murders and blood that gave birth to a new nation as it seceded from Pakistan? Bangladesh was one of the only successful nationalist movements post-Partition. Growing up, stories of the Mukti Bahini, (Bengali for “Freedom Fighter”), were the stories that raised us.
My mother told me in 1971, you would send out the men in your family to look in large public parks for the bodies of loved ones who had “disappeared,” picked up by Pakistani soldiers. Despite the endless killings and torture, she still says, “There was a feeling in the air that you could do anything. Everyone knew Independence was only a matter of time.”
But the one thing we did not hear about as much as we heard about the passionate fighting that defeated the Pakistani Army, were the rapes that took place in 1971. Many academics state that the first time rape was consciously applied as a weapon of war was during the Bangladesh War of Independence.
Yet growing up, those are the stories that were missing from the narrative the post-war generation were told. While the role of women as fighters and supporters of the war are highlighted, the stories of rape camps and war babies are largely ignored.
But we all know that as hard as you try, history cannot be rewritten. The truth exists, and ultimately comes out. In recent years, the shame is slowly lifting from this part of Bangladesh’s Liberation War as more scholars ask questions, and more feminists demand the truth.
Each time I go home to Bangladesh, a relative, usually male, takes me aside and whispers stories to me about the “piles, and piles of bodies of rape victims” you would find under bridges in mass graves. “How many women were raped and killed in the hands of Pakistani soldiers,” my uncle tells me as his voice whimpers. “You cannot imagine, Ma.”
“The mothers and daughters of Bengal are all freedom fighters,” Reads a Liberation War Commemoration Poster. Image Credit: Wikipedia
But a Bangladeshi scholar wants us to do just that. In fact, as a country we all owe a great deal to Bina D’Costa who went and tracked down the Australian doctor, Geoffrey Davis, brought to Dhaka by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and the United Nations. Davis was tasked with performing late-term abortions, and facilitating large scale international adoption of the war babies born to Bangladeshi women.
D’Costa’s conversation with Dr. Davis was recently published in a Bangladeshi publication, and is worth reading in its entirety. The stories of women being tied to trees and gang raped, breasts hacked off, dumped in mass graves, being held in Pakistani rape camps are all detailed.
When asked if the usual figures of the number of women raped by the Pakistani Army, 200-400,000, are accurate, Dr. Davis states that they are underestimated:
…Probably the numbers are very conservative compared with what they did. The descriptions of how they captured towns were very interesting. They’d keep the infantry back and put artillery ahead and they would shell the hospitals and schools. And that caused absolute chaos in the town. And then the infantry would go in and begin to segregate the women. Apart from little children, all those were sexually matured would be segregated..And then the women would be put in the compound under guard and made available to the troops…Some of the stories they told were appalling. Being raped again and again and again. A lot of them died in those [rape] camps. There was an air of disbelief about the whole thing. Nobody could credit that it really happened! But the evidence clearly showed that it did happen.
Haunted By This Headline. Image Credit: BD News
Dr. Davis talks about how Sheikh Mujibur Rahman labeled the rape survivors as “war heroines” to help them reintegrate into their communities, but the gesture largely did not work. After being assaulted and impregnated by Pakistani soldiers, the Bangladeshi women were completely ostracized by society. Many were killed by their husbands, committed suicide, or murdered their half-Pakistani babies themselves.
Some women were so scared to go back home after being held captive in Pakistani rape camps, they begged their Pakistani captors to take them back to Pakistan with them.
As I was reading through the article, I found myself simultaneously looking up sources online. This video of a NBC reporter who found a shelter where many women impregnated by Pakistani soldiers stayed until they delivered makes you remember that when we talk about the large-scale violence against women that took place in 1971, often we are talking about young girls, sometimes just 13 years old.
As I struggled through my emotions to keep reading, I stopped and sat back in my chair. “What am I doing this for?” I asked myself. “What is the point of digging up all this horror?”
That is when I realized that the pain is exactly the point. The shame that the women of Bangladeshi who survived the war carry should be shared with all of us. Why should they suffer in silence? They probably bore the greatest burden of the war, and out of respect we must recognize them. We must find honor in their experience.
Yes, we are a “conservative” country. Yes, we are a Muslim country. Yes, we can use a lot of excuses as to why we want to close our eyes to this painful and horrifying part of 1971. But by doing that, we are denying a huge part of our history to exist. As D’Costa says, we are intentionally suffering from “historical amnesia.”
After Bosnia, the Rome Statute officially recognized rape as a weapon of war. While these survivors are still alive, Bangladesh must honor their testimonies and have these crimes prosecuted in the War Crimes Tribunal, finally set up in Bangladesh forty years after Independence.
The question that keeps haunting me though is where can the vibrant women’s movement in Bangladesh go if we have a such a massive historical wound to heal from? We must look to the past and bring justice to these women, to all the survivors of the sexual violence of the 1971 war, if we really want to move forward.
*This post of mine was also published on Forbes Woman & the Huffington Post.
This is a great piece, first of all
We all hear how proudly all those freedom fighters fought till their deaths to give Bangladesh independence. But the fact that while those men were fighting, countless women were being raped & murdered off has been shrouded by history in the guise of ‘shame’. The term ‘war heroine’ got no real acknowledgement.
“I am certain that troops have thrown babies into the air and caught them on their bayonets”
“I am certain that troops have raped girls repeatedly, then killed them by pushing their bayonets up between their legs.”
—John Hastings, A Methodist missionary who worked in Bangladesh
“Gen Tikka in turn briefed his Army Senior Commanders and picked up a staff who would understand why a Muslim Massacre by a Muslim Army, Hindu slaughter, why all intellectuals were to be killed in cold blood, why all young Bengali Muslim girls were to be raped, not to satisfy lust but as a religious duty to produce a new generation of blue-blooded true Muslims.” (muktadhara.net)
Taslima Nasreen, an eminent Bengali writer, later on wrote how one of her aunts were taken to one of those Pakistani camps to be gang-raped. After the war, her aunt returned; bringing home ‘shame’ to her family. Unable to bear all the whispers & suffocation, the woman hanged herself a year after Bangladesh regained independence during the month of victory(Here is the exact translation I wrote of what Nasreen said: http://www.umnotablogger.com/misc/content/1311-thoughts-on-march-26-from-1971-to-2012.html )
There is no way that today’s generation would get to know what really went on in 1971 except for the stories passed on to us by our elders. However, the recounts of the Bangladeshi women are rare due to the ‘shame’ factor. Like you mentioned, the untold stories do not do justice and shed light on these war heroines at all. Their sacrifice, pain and suffering are going unnoticed and has for decades. Thank you for bringing this topic to the spotlight. There is no better piece to read for me than one that tells the history of my people and of our women! I adulate you for spreading the TRUTH through this brilliant piece.
As a reader & being a Bangladeshi, I understand & respect your point & reasons about this article but still like you in the middle, the same question haunts me…”What’s the point or how can we NOW reconcile those pains & horror that happened with our mothers & sisters back at the liberation war?”
The thing is massive destructions, merciless killings & RAPES are the common casualties of a war. I don’t take the bullshits of a country’s defense force or the army people are only made of patriotic soldiers. In every defense force or military group around the world there are hyenas in army uniform waiting to rape the defenseless women in a war or war like situation (and the system that they goes through to become an army personnel is mostly responsible for that). Therefore, rape is one of the undeniable & horrifying casualties that’s very natural or common thing to face on in an army invasion anywhere. I think if we go through the history & impact of wars around the world we’ll find plenty of examples where the the major or at least some part of attacking troops eventually get involved in this crime by themselves or as an order from their seniors. Moreover, a war creates such unthinkable scenarios where it gets the best as well as the worst of a man & made him think of “what to do” when there’s a captured, helpless young woman in front of him.
Now, let me make one thing clear that I’m not here for making any point to support this horrendous crimes or making any sense to what happened with thousands of Bangladeshi women back at the war.
Rape is one of those ghastly crimes that demands punishment & justice sooner than any other crimes…even a brutal murder, IMO. Cause as long the society or the system takes the time or fails to deliver the justice, the sufferings of the victim(s) grows more & more. Particularly, in a country like Bangladesh it actually somewhat impossible to come back to the society or to your known neighbouhood or sometimes even to your own family, in an acceptable scenario or place if you become a rape victim.
In the term, you said “hide”….demands some clarification, IMO. Cause, the people of after war generation I think just knows the fact that thousands of Bangladeshi women got raped in the war but what actually the state did hide from them were mostly the identities of those women & the detail stories of how they got raped and I think most of the post-war Bangladeshi civilians (born in late 70′s, 80′s, 90′s or 00′s) doesn’t intend or interested to know those information. Cause…what’s the point as we already failed to protect, shelter or support them after the liberation; as we already failed to deliver the justice to them at the right time when it actually mattered, demanded and they needed?
Do you think Bangladesh as a country is now in a position or after all these years its justice & judiciary system as well as social scenario & political structure is now capable to bring those war criminals down & punish them properly? The truth is a very late initiative or beginning of the judiciary process for a past crime after all these years in a country like Bangladesh can’t able to generate the expected or proper justice. The government & the system is already started to baffle with the process to punish the well known Rajakars like Golam Azam or SAKA CHOWDHURY.
I don’t know how many of those ‘War Heroines’ actually or whether or not got any recognition from any government so far. Yeah…they should have honored & demands from the country more than anyone else for the sacrifices they made. But feeling very helpless, shameful & sorry to say, according to our current social scenario & “values”, I’m not sure what good it’d bring to them now if we started to dig those horror of war now?
The thing is, in an extremely conservative culture like that of South Asia, rape-victims can hardly reintegrate themselves back into the society. If their secret leaks out, they are subjected to all those pointings & whispers. So the best way most of these victims can get back into the society is by keeping it a secret. This makes it easy for all those rapists to escape. And if the women does demand justice, it is all so easy to label her off as an adulteress & condemn her for everything. The lack of scientific evidence in rape cases is definitely a problem since villages aren’t equipped to attempt scientific investigations. There have been rape cases in the Middle-East, where due to the loopholes & lack of evidences, rape-victims were labeled off as adulteress and beheaded according to their laws and customs for adultery. Another interesting case is Morocco, where, weirdly, rape-victims are forced to marry their rapists in order to prevent their ‘honor’.
But war-rapes are a different issue altogether. In WW2 the Japanese Army shipped off thousands of poor Korean women and forced them to work in brothels in army camps. During the last US invasion of Iraq, Abeer al-Janabi, a 14-year old Iraqi was raped incessantly by 5 US soldiers in front of her family before the soldiers shot all of them and disposed off their bodies. Hers is one of the few stories that garnered attention because the insurgents in Iraq started slaying all those officers from the unit after that rape. But in Bangladesh, the honors of all those who were raped are a subject stigmatised and not talked about by the elders;even those who actually knew many women who were victims of this brutality shun away the subject. This is one of those curses of the war that the society will have to bear as long as history books exist.
Thank you so much for your support, and for reading my work. I could not tell when I found the interview if I should write about it or not, but at the end I decided that the truth must be exposed and the next generation of Bangladeshis must know everything about this war, our history. These women must get justice after 40 years. They deserve nothing less.
Thankyou so much for posting about this – all i see in dhaka these days are how people have turned this day into a big party noone ever bothers talking about these incidents , if you didn’t write about this I would have never EVER KNOWN.
Thank you so much Anushay!! A Person like you shows that even form this new generation we are showing real interest, and real concern. it shows and gives us hope, because when we see after 40 years of Independence, people started questioning our victory, people are slowly drifting from the root cause, forgetting the hardship. I was visiting Dhaka last summer, and in an occasion I was so emotional because of some comments that were passing around me that I had to leave that place. So, thank you so much, with your young eye, and mind you are seeing and looking into this very important part of our Mukti jJuddho which really been neglected I would say. I don’t know if you have visited The mukti juddho jadughor, the war museam, in Dhaka, they will have a great deal of info and support for people like you. All the best for you…..Shifa
Hi, I’m a young non-resident Bangladeshi learning about the history of our country. I’ve heard many conflicting sides to this debate and really don’t know what to think..No one really denies the atrocities committed by the Pakis, but I’ve heard others say that some of the Mukti Judhas were just as inhumane in their treatment of civilians whom they perceived as not supporting the war of independence. Many such civilians were not Razakar supporters, or even Pro-Paki, but rather, preferred a non-violent resolution to the conflict, as it was between two Muslim entities. I would love if anybody could shed some light on this topic??
Thank you for writing this piece, Ms. Anushay! Truth must be spoken and the victims of the war–our daughters, sisters, and mothers– must be recognized. it’s time to speak out, and heal. However, it should be exclusively for healing, not creating chaos–modeled after the Truth Commission set up in South Africa under Nelson Mandela. I salute Bina D’Costa and likes of her for their courage!
Pingback: Bangladesh: Justice For The Rape Victims Of The Liberation War · Global Voices
Pingback: Μπανγκλαντές: Δικαιοσύνη για τα θύματα βιασμών του Απελευθερωτικού Πολέμου · Global Voices στα Ελληνικά
Pingback: 1971 Rapes: Bangladesh Cannot Hide History | FMF Blog
Pingback: Anus stories | Migrainemanual
This is Islam and now the Muslim Bengalis are doing the same in Bangladesh to their Hindu counterpart and even in Indian state of West Bengal.
mr. observer, you are totaly wrong. crime doesnt follow any relegion. you need to study lot about our history. why should be hindus treated as counterpart? bangladesh belongs to all…….
Pingback: A People’s Remembrance of 1971 | Yasmin Saikia | Tanqeed
still hindus are discriminated and deprived…..i dont know the way of solution in this regard.
Pingback: Beyond Partisan Politics: Bangladesh Protest For Justice | ANUSHAY'S POINT
Independent researchers say around 300,000 (3 lacs) to 500,000 (5 lacs) died in 1971 Bangladesh war, then why common people in Bangladesh are misguided by their establishment and some from Inida that the numbers were around 3 millions? Independent researchers, R J Rummel for exammple, estimated that 150,000 non-Bengals were massacred by Awami League aligned militias, with a low estimate of 50,000 and a high estimate of 500,000. Why the common people in Bangladesh are being ignorant of this fact that Awami League aligned militia Mukti Bahini may have killed 500,000 (5 lacs) innocent non-Bengalis (Pakistanis) civilians? Indeed Pakistan army and some politicians of west Pakistan of that time made some serious mistakes and they should apologize to the people of Bangladesh for it but why common people in Bangladesh are not ashamed of the mass killings of innocent non Bangalis Pakistani civilians during the same war?
Get more information from the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13417170
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115983958114219.html