Please - Odhikar

E. The Politicians and the Government
1. There needs to be serious political will to establish a concrete set of rules for the
protection of victims and witnesses in the countries of the region.
2. Criminalisation of politics and political pressure on law enforcing agencies has to be
curtailed and controlled.
Md. Rouf: Justice delayed is justice denied, there are many cases that linger for a long time for
an uncertain period. And the more the case lingers the more victims are going to suffer. So, the
cases relating to violence against women and children should be completed within a reasonable
time. Close monitoring system for the witnesses should be developed in the national and local
level. The participants will be happy to know that that the Ministry for Home Affairs is going to
establish female based police stations. In every police station there will be a separate
investigation unit for female victims.
Selina, Ain O Shalish Kendra: a question for the representative of the Ministry for Home
Affairs. We also give legal aids and safe custody. We have many cases where female children
and women who are not victims of incidents are also kept in safe custody and jail. Many of these
girls are missing children who get lost from their parents. We help them find their parents and
through court we release the children and hand them over to the legal guardian. They are the
subject of deprivation and psychological torment. What can be done for such girls?
Md. Rouf: when a child is missing you must file a GD. When a missing or trafficked child is
rescued then the matter should go to the court. Now we are establishing a mechanism where
when a victim is rescued and the family is not available or cannot be identified, she should be
handed over to the NGOs who have shelter homes. The Bangladesh National Women Lawyers
Association has a shelter home in Agargaon, if you visit these shelter homes you will find 84
victims who have recently been repatriated from Abu Dhabi as camel jockeys. This is our
present mechanism for the rehabilitation of the trafficked victims.
Syed Fahim Munaim: Being in the media, the issue of professional ethics is more or so the
internal policy of a newspaper. T he newspapers are extremely sensitive. They have their own
policies; they do not want to be dictated by anyone, whether it is an agency, government or any
other organization. So, the efforts should be more so in the form of a personal approach or a
personal letter to the editors and the publishers and producers.
Saeedur Rehman: I have serious problems with the word victim, except the case of murder. In
the case of all other crimes the word should be survivor. The word victim fixes the condition of
the receiver of a criminal act. For example if somebody is targeted by a criminal act his/her first
attempt is to survive, to survive from the after affects or trauma. By using the word victim, we
are sort of fixing the person in one particular moment in time. The fact that he/she overcame the
criminal act perpetrated against him/her, makes a survivor.
Nadira, SAP Bangladesh: From the social context I want to request you all not to see this
victim witness protection thing from one angle. It is directly involved with the livelihood of
some people - some of which are illegal. For example, when the Adamjee Jute Mills was closed
down, all the employees, who could be considered victims of consequence, went back to their
own areas where some have started a number of illegal activities.
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Report 2005