TDS Desk:

The six-year-old girl was missing since the afternoon of 27 August. Her family made announcements in the area using loudspeakers in search of the child. Later that night, her body was found inside an abandoned septic tank at a brick kiln.

Police investigations revealed that an 18-year-old labourer named Md Rasel had raped and murdered the child. He was subsequently arrested. The incident took place in Feni Sadar upazila.

It was Huzaifa Nusrat Afsie’s fourth birthday on 6 October. But instead of celebrating, her father, engineer Mamunur Rashid, had to bury her that very day.

Since February, Mamunur had been renting the ground floor of a house owned by Farid Ahmed in Purba Pankhali area of Hnila Union in Teknaf upazila of Cox’s Bazar.

On 5 October, Afsie’s body was recovered from a pond next to the house. She was the third of four siblings. Police have arrested seven suspects, including the landlord’s wife and son.

Teknaf Model Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Abu Zayed Md Nazmun Nur told Journalists that two of the accused had given confessional statements. The child may have been killed for her gold earrings, he added.

Data from both government and non-government sources show that cases of abuse against girl children continue unabated. Among these, rape and murder cases are the most common.

Against this backdrop, Bangladesh is observing International Day of the Girl Child on Saturday, 11 October, with the theme, ‘The girl I am, the change I lead: Girls on the frontlines of crisis’.

RAPE AND MURDER CASES MOST PREVALENT

According to data from the Police Headquarters, as many as 2,159 cases of child abuse have been filed between January and June this year. During those six months, 2,744 cases of rape involving women and children were reported in total. However, the data does not specify how many of these involved girl children.

Data from the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad shows that between January and September this year, 993 girls were subjected to various forms of abuse. Compiling reports published in 15 national dailies, the organisation found that rape was the most frequently reported form of abuse.

During this nine-month period, 350 girls accounting for 35 per cent of the total abuse cases were raped. Thirteen of the girls were murdered following rape while, 81 girls were killed in total. Other reported forms of abuse included attempted rape, trafficking, sexual harassment, stalking, and child marriage.

The National Girl Child Advocacy Forum, which compiled data from news reports, stated that in the first eight months of this year, 390 girls were victims of rape and gang rape across the country, a sharp rise compared to the same period last year. A total of 224 girls were raped in the first eight months of 2024.

Under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, 2000, the maximum punishment for rape is death penalty or rigorous imprisonment for life.

Following the nationwide protests over the rape and subsequent death of a child in Magura, the interim government amended the law to expedite rape trials. The Women and Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance, 2025 was issued on 25 March this year.

Key amendments include establishing separate tribunals for child rape cases, expanding the definition of sexual assault to include acts against boys under the term “balatkar”, reducing the time limits for investigation and trial, adding a new clause on sexual acts through promises of marriage, and removing the mandatory requirement for DNA testing in rape cases.

Girl children also fall victim to domestic violence. In Lakshmipur Sadar upazila, a father was accused of hacking his six-year-old daughter to death on 6 October.

Locals claimed that the father, Md Faruk, was a drug addict who killed his daughter and dumped her body in a pond. Lakshmipur Sadar Model Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Abdul Monnaf confirmed that the father had been arrested.

According to data from the Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), in the past nine months, 47 children were killed following domestic violence, 36 of whom were under the age of six. However, the number of girl victims was not specified separately.

Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president Fauzia Moslem told “The main reason for the rise in child abuse cases is the lack of justice. We observe these awareness days every year, but we must also pay attention to our responsibilities towards ensuring the basic rights of girl children.”

Demanding the harshest punishment for those responsible for his daughter’s murder, Afsie’s father, Mamunur Rashid, posted a heartbreaking letter on social media on her birthday.

In the post, titled ‘Afsie’s Open Letter’, he wrote on behalf of his daughter, “My soul longs for justice. Those who snatched away my laughter, who extinguished the light of my life, may they receive the severest punishment under the law of this country.”