Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said south Asian governments should disregard populist death penalty rhetoric and listen to their own experts to prevent and end sexual violence against women.
The New York-based rights group also said that experts on sexual violence from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka address the growing protest movements across the region prompted by government mishandling of high-profile sexual violence cases.
On Thursday, HRW released a video titled “South Asia: Justice, Services Can Curb Sexual Violence,” to document the death penalty push ignores real solutions to regional failings to prevent and end sexual violence against women.
“Women and girls across South Asia are fed up with their governments’ failure to tackle sexual violence,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch
“They have long watched their governments tolerate – or even facilitate – impunity for sexual violence, and they are taking to the streets and demanding change now,” she said.
According to a statement of HRW, in Bangladesh, the government failed to stop the viral spread of a video of a group of men attacking, stripping, and sexually assaulting a woman.
The human rights watchdog also said that when survivors seek justice, they often face insurmountable obstacles in the courts. Conviction rates for sexual violence are extremely low across the region. For example, in Bangladesh it is estimated that fewer than one percent of rape cases investigated by police lead to conviction.
HRW also claims that rather than do the work needed to make meaningful change, some governments in the region have responded to protests by making populist calls to execute rapists. Pakistan’s prime minister called for rapists to be executed in public. In 2020 Bangladesh imposed the death penalty for rape. Indian law permits capital punishment for repeat rape offenders or for rape of children under age 12.
The experts agreed that the death penalty is not a solution. Imposing death may further deter some survivors from coming forward, and experts expressed concern about weak justice systems wielding such power and the impact of weak judicial systems on procedural rights, including the right to a fair trial, said HRW.
“When our justice system is not so strong, a death penalty sentence may actually result in the death of an innocent person,” said Ikleela Hameed, founder of Voice of Children in the Maldives.
“Death penalty is not a deterrent for any crime,” said Vrinda Grover, a lawyer from India.
“It lets the state off the hook from doing the work that the state needs to do in order to ensure that women and girls live free lives in this country,” she added.
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