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Since the Rohingya crisis began in August 2017, over 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar to escape violence, seeking refuge in Bangladesh.
Residents of Islampur, a remote village in the northern Bangladeshi district of Naogaon, were stunned one night last summer when the darkness was suddenly illuminated by electric lights coming from a village home. Why the surprise? The community has no connection to the country’s power grid. The owner of the house, Rafiqul Islam, is one of around 15M Bangladeshis whose homes are now powered by solar home systems, or SHS, under a government scheme to provide clean power to communities with no access to grid electricity.
At least 249 women were killed in 2010 for their dowry, this according to the Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR). Whether out of anger or for vengeance, husbands often beat their wives or set them on fire with kerosene, sometimes with the complicity of their families. In some cases, women are strangled and then hanged to simulate a suicide. The figures are incomplete though because many cases are not reported. In fact, if in 2007, there were 145 recorded cases, dropping to 114 in 2008 and 109 in 2009, the numbers last year showed a marked reversal. At the same time, the BSEHR also reported that, last year, at least 122 women were tortured.
Acid attacks against women and girls are continuing despite legal campaigns to halt their spread. Over 2,600 cases have been reported since 1999, according to the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) of Bangladesh. Almost all the attacks have been on women or girls. Many of the victims are under 18, says ASF, which has been working to eliminate acid violence for almost a decade.
