When I saw the picture of the 14 year old victim of child marriage and rape, clad in elaborate jewellery and a bright wedding outfit, I was reminded of the times I had dressed up as a bride in my childhood. My parents dote on me and provide me with the best opportunities, so wearing these ornaments and dresses was just fun and games for me. For this young girl from Tangail, it was the pathway to hell. 

That is exactly what makes this news so intensely heartbreaking: how poverty and patriarchy caused the child’s family to, essentially, destroy any prospects of a life of education and hand her over to a family that would end up murdering her. Amidst all the pain that this news has caused, it is our responsibility to understand the culture of violence and oppression that has gone into the murder of this child. 

1) Normalization of child marriage

How many times have you heard a family member casually say that your grandmother was married off at six or seven years old? How many times have you been reminded that you are privileged to not be a “grihini” at someone’s house slaving away as your dreams get flushed down the drain? And, how many times have you questioned it, been angered by it? 

As a society, we are so used to child marriage that, at best, it is just another uncomfortable open secret that we prefer not discussing at family gatherings and parties. It is, apparently, a part of our culture to get children married off. We thump our chests with pride thinking we are “honoring” our girl children by treating them like units of transaction. Apparently, marriage allows them to enter some coveted hall of status where they will become a source of prestige for their family. But who asked to be honored like this in the first place? 

59% of girls in Bangladesh are married off before their 18th birthday and 22% are married off before the age of 15. These are only the reported figures. This is a culture so widespread that only a massive cultural shift can solve this. Hence, we need to focus on girls being safe, healthy, and educated during their childhoods, so that they can build their own honor on their own terms, we just need to ensure they can do so. 

Another reason for the extent of child marriage in our nation is that it is used to alleviate poverty, just like in the recent tragedy. Women and girls are looked at as less productive members of society who are mandated to be “lost” to another family when they get married eventually, so they cannot look after their parents when they are old. They become “por” (strangers). So, there is less perceived economic benefit in bringing up daughters because, in the minds of many, you are only bringing her up for another family. This kind of alienating and outdated thought process is one of many that contribute to the culture of child marriage and violence. Why do brides, even those above 18, need to become strangers to the people who gave birth to them just because they have a spouse now? Why can’t girls also be a source of pride, joy, and economic upliftment for their families? Why can’t we wait till our daughters are grown and educated and get a chance to even have their own dreams before we think of transferring them to someone else? 

To change this culture, we need to review what means something to us as a collective. Bangladesh’s accelerated GDP growth means absolutely nothing if parents have to sell their daughters off to rapists to escape from poverty. Bangladesh’s social progress means absolutely nothing if having a daughter means she will be married off prematurely and die from being raped while sons are allowed to have 14 year old “brides” at the age of 34. 

2) Proving masculinity through dominance and female purity through virginity

What makes a man a man? Dignity? Kindness? Generosity? Wrong answers. In our culture, what makes a man is how much he can dominate those around him, especially his wife. Consider the stereotypes of weak men in our culture: someone who is “whipped” by his wife, someone who does not have his wife “under control”, or someone who earns less than his wife. Basically, toxic masculinity is equated to strength. In a patriarchal culture like this, after marriage, men feel the need to dominate and conquer their wives, even sexually. There is no value for a woman’s consent when it comes to sex, and men think that being rough or harsh during sex is a sign of male strength and sexual prowess. Somehow, female pain and agony has come to signify applause for fragile men’s egos. In that case, we need to change how we view relationships between husbands and wives and what we expect them to be like. Prioritising equality, consent, and compassion among married couples is imperative for us as a society. 

Another concept of patriarchy that is as old as time is women’s purity. A “pure” woman is someone who is a virgin; she is “fresh” and when she becomes more than, maybe, 12, she is “ripe”. Such dehumanising and derogatory language and mindsets only prove what kind of “honor” we really give girls and women in our society. We need to understand that males and females are as pure as their actions and thoughts; virginity does not make someone pure. We need to stop creating victims of child marriage in an attempt to chase a problematic fantasy of marrying child virgins.

However, marital rape is still a new concept in a society where more than half of the girls get married before they are adults. A married woman having the authority to say no to sex with her husband is so insane to us that we do not even consider marital rape to be rape. “Biyer pore abar rape kisher?” is the kind of question that we pose when a woman’s human rights are violated by the person who was supposed to be her partner. What happened to the child from Tangail who was murdered is marital rape, except it is not recognised by our law and her husband will only be punished for engaging in child marriage, not rape. Given this baffling denial of justice, it is time for our minds and laws to reform so that we can see how unjust this form of women’s human rights violation is and consider marital rape to be rape. We cannot rest from educating ourselves and pushing for societal change till child marriage is not an “old normal” anymore. 

3) The taboo that is sexual health

When the child in question told her in-laws of the bleeding she was experiencing, they took her to a “Kobiraj”. Only when the bleeding reached an extreme point did they take her to a proper hospital but, obviously, it was too little too late. The mother in law of the child was also reported to say that the child was possessed by a demon and that is what made her bleed so much. If we tell ourselves that this ignorance is a rare occurrence, it would be naive and foolish. 

Sexual health has next to no importance in Bangladesh. Consider how comfortable you would feel telling your in-laws (who you met a few weeks ago) you were bleeding vaginally, or how you would feel if they completely disregarded it for days. The lack of awareness around sexual health can only be solved by education. Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) is a module that teaches people about anatomy, healthy and unhealthy attitudes towards people, hygiene and cleanliness, reproductive diseases, and more. We need to make sure our schools and universities are incorporating this education nationwide. 

Beyond all this analysis, something that we cannot forget by any means is that the rapist of the child IS a rapist even if our law does not call him so and we need to fight to change the law. We also cannot forget that a child died due to his gross inhumanity, her in-laws’ negligence and disregard, and a system of violence that is held up by us all. However, as the title suggests, hopelessness is for those who can go through life only watching all this from a distance and sighing. Those of us who carry the pain of victims and survivors of gender-based violence need to stay hopeful so we can keep fighting because if this culture does not change, our lives will always be a nightmare. Since we do not have the privilege of being hopeless, we need to dismantle the 3 cultural norms listed above bit by bit every single day. 

Bangladesh will change because Bangladesh has to change.