Statement for the Human Rights Council concerning violence against women in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
In the statement it is pointed out that Jumma girls and women have been targets of sexual violence since the late 1970s. A report of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission (CHTC) from 1991 documents that in 1983, a secret memorandum was circulated to all army officers in the CHT encouraging them to marry indigenous women.
It was an ethnicity and gender directed document that institutionalized sexual targeting of Jumma women as was evident from the increased incidents of rapes, sexual attacks and also marriages occurring after abduction or applying force. The CHTC report concluded that ‘[r]ape is used systematically as a weapon against women in the CHT.’ Similarly, CHT’s Hill Women’s Federation recorded in its 1995 Beijing women’s conference leaflet that ‘[o]ver 94% of all alleged cases of rape of Jumma women during 1991-1993 in the CHT were by “security forces.” Of these rape allegations, over 40% of the victims were children.’ The statement concludes with a number of recommendations for the Government of Bangladesh and reiterating recommendations made by United Nations Permanent Forum regarding the situation in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Tags: Women
