On 26 March 1971 began a nine-month long genocidal campaign, orchestrated by the government of Pakistan against the people of Bangladesh. During the conflict thousands of women and girls were sexually violated and many were taken from their homes to be interned in rape camps. When the Pakistani army eventually surrendered, one journalist reportedly overheard a soldier bragging: “We are going. But we are leaving our seed behind.”

 

The conflict severed East from West Pakistan, leading to the establishment of modern-day Bangladesh. Immediately following liberation, the Bangladeshi rape victims were declared "Birangonas" (war heroines) to bestow honour on the sacrifices they had made for Amar Sonar Bangla (My Golden Bangladesh). Though the government’s intention was noble, it was certainly a lapse in judgment.

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The label Birangona served to identify the victims in a society where rape and dishonor are interchangeable terms; those who survived became objects of khota (scorn) in their communities. According to Nayanika Mookherjee, author of The Spectral Wound, husbands struggled to look their "tainted" wives in the face, and unmarried rape victims faced a lifetime of solitude. No governmental decree, regardless of how well intentioned, could root out such entrenched attitudes overnight. Today the elderly Birangonas maintain a contradictory legacy. They are simultaneously the pride, and shame, of a nation.

Bangladesh Flag  (Source: Flickr)