Rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War

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Persecution of Bengali Hindus
Part of Bengali Hindu history
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Persecution
Bargi atrocities 1930 Dhaka riots Direct Action Day 1946 Noakhali massacres 1950 East Bengal massacres 1962 Rajshahi massacres 1964 East Pakistan massacres 1971 Bangladesh genocide Rape Marichjhapi incident Persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh 1989 Hojai riots 1990 1992 2010 Deganga riots 2012 Hathazari 2012 Fatehpur 2012 Chirirbandar 2013 2013 Canning riots 2016 Kaliachak riots 2017 Kha Maung Seik massacre
Opposition
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v t e

During the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, members of the Pakistani military and Razakar paramilitary force raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women and girls in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape.^[1][2][3][4] Most of the rape victims of the Pakistani Army and its allies were Hindu women.^[5] Some of these women died in captivity or committed suicide, while others moved from Bangladesh to India.^[6] Imams and Muslim religious leaders declared the women "war booty".^[7][8] The activists and leaders of Islamic parties are also accused to be involved in the rapes and abduction of women.^[8]

The Pakistani elite believed that Hindus were behind the revolt and that as soon as there was a solution to the "Hindu problem", the conflict would resolve. For Pakistanis, the violence against Hindus was a strategic policy.^[9] Muslim Pakistani men believed the sacrifice of Hindu women was needed to fix the national malaise.^[10] Anecdotal evidence suggests that Imams and Mullahs supported the rapes by the Pakistani Army and issued fatwas declaring the women war booty. A fatwa from West Pakistan during the war asserted that women taken from Bengali Hindus could be considered war booty.^[8][11] Those rapes apparently caused thousands of pregnancies, births of war babies, abortions, infanticide, suicide, and ostracism of the victims. This is often asserted to be one of the severest occurrences of wartime sexual violence.^[12] The atrocities ended after the December 1971 surrender of the Pakistani military and supporting Razakar militias.^[13][14]

During the war, Bengali nationalists also committed mass rape of ethnic Bihari Muslim women, since the Bihari Muslim community supported Pakistan.^[15] Yasmin Saikia, a scholar, was informed repeatedly in Bangladesh that Pakistani, Bengali, and Bihari men raped Hindu women during the war.^[16]

In 2009, almost 40 years after the events of 1971, a report published by the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee of Bangladesh accused 1,597 people of war crimes, including rape. Since 2010, the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) has indicted, tried, and sentenced several people to life imprisonment or death for their actions during the conflict. The stories of the rape victims have been told in movies and literature, and depicted in art.

The term Birangana was first introduced in 1971 by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to refer to victims of rape during the Bangladesh Liberation War, in an attempt to prevent them from being outcast by the society.^[17] Since 1972, victims of rape during the war have been recognized as Birangona, or "war heroines", by the government of Bangladesh.^[17][18]