Status of Crime Victims in Bangladesh

Abstract

Though a few provisions for the victim of crimes were indirectly recognized since the nineteenth century, from 2000 onwards, legal entitlements for crime victims are realized in Bangladesh with a specific focus on women and children. So far, few analyses are found to be performed mainly by the legal experts, emphasizing legal rights and remedies with recommendations for legal reform. However, studies on the status of victims’ rights seem to be incomplete without considering administrative as well as social reality—dominated by colonial legacy and traditional practices—beyond the written clauses in the law books. This study is one of the pioneering attempts in Bangladesh to understand the status of crime victims against the backdrop of recent legal changes and to examine the argument whether the legal provisions itself are enough in providing victims with intended benefits without simultaneous social and administrative changes. Within the theoretical framework of balancing victim’s rights and informal social control (victim blaming), this qualitative study (through content analysis) reviewed all criminal laws and research findings related to victim’s rights within a socio-legal approach in terms of victim’s access, participation, protection, services and compensation. Along with the rights legally granted to victims, available research findings were interpreted in connection to those particular rights. It is found that there are unsupportive social milieu, administrative subculture and political practices, where victims of crime are strongly restrained from enjoying their rights. Particularly, the status of crime victims is found to be undermined in the face of corruption, low public confidence on enforcing agencies, gross withdrawal or discharge of criminal cases on political grounds, limited geographical coverage of victim support services and shelter homes, lengthy process for compensation and unavailability of rules or guidelines to enforce the rights.