Rights activists on ‘eve teasing’
Rights activists yesterday called for using the term “sexual harassment” to describe bullying of young women saying the words “eve teasing” were too lenient a term to describe the nasty crime of the perpetrators.
“In no way it should be seen as a minor offence, which is meant by the use of term ‘eve teasing’…it is actually sexual harassment and it’s perpetrators must face severe legal actions,” civil society activist and economist Prof Anu Mohammad told a discussion.
He said use of the term “eve teasing” in a different way intended to make a “serious crime” as simple as a “fun” when the victims’ security was exposed to danger.
Several of the speakers demanded enactment of tougher laws to expose perpetrators of bullying to justice. But Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani said the existing law could appropriately punish the perpetrators for which “the victims complain is enough.”
The former High Court judge rather said efforts should be made to launch a campaign to regenerate social values to get rid of the growing curse as “degeneration of the values is the prime cause of increasing sexual harassment.”
Some of the speakers also criticised the code name “Operation Romeo Hunt” to mean the elite anti-crime Rapid Action Battalion’s (Rab) anti-bullying campaign, which could romanticise the act.
Prof Nasima Akhter Hossain of Jahangirnagar University presided over the discussion while Prof Geetiara Nasreen, Prof Kaberi Gayen, Prof Nasrin Khandoker and Prof Shyamoli Shil, among others, addressed.
