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BANGLADESH has made significant developmental progress in recent decades. The annual economic growth has been strong at an average of 5-7 per cent since the 1990s. Levels of poverty have dropped from 57 per cent in the early 1990s to 40 per cent in 2005. There have been major improvements in the education of primary school-age girls with 85 per cent enrolment (World Bank 2008, 2009; UNHCR 2009). However, comprehensive and sustained development requires providing communities with complete human security – freedom from fear as well as want. Violent crime profoundly affects citizens’ physical, psychological and economic welfare and deters developmental progress. In Bangladesh non-governmental organisation-run programmes suffer not only from serious lack of resources but also the government’s lack of political will. Thus, programmes that assist survivors of violence are hampered; the lack of reliable data disguises the problem’s true scale.
   Recently, the BRAC Research and Evaluation Division analysed over 3,000 reported violations in 61 districts between 2006 and 2009. This is presumably a mere fraction of total incidents during this period, as most crimes do not get reported at all. The analysis found that rape was the most frequent crime (30 per cent), followed by murder (24 per cent), acid throwing (15 per cent), suicide (11 per cent, often the result of rape), physical torture (7 per cent) and attempted rape (6 per cent). The predominance of gender-based violence at home and in the community highlights a desperate need to protect young girls and adolescents.
   Adolescent girls are the most frequent victims of sexual assault. Fifty per cent of rape victims and 60 per cent of attempt to rape victims are less than 14 years old. The actual incidence of sexual assault among adolescents and young women may indeed be higher than the numbers project. Firstly, the reporting mechanism does not include other types of sexual assault, such as harassment in the workplace and eve-teasing. Secondly, rape often leads to murder, or shames victims to commit suicide. It is, therefore, likely that many recorded suicide and murder victims were also victims of sexual violence. Children in extended households are often more at risk of sexual assault. Young girls and women who have more mobility (walking to school or college) are also potential targets. Resources are needed for preventive awareness campaigns and providing post-traumatic psychosocial counselling and treatment, for both parents and children in order to protect the physical and emotional health of future generations.
   Unfortunately, the analysed numbers represent a mere fraction of the total number of the sexually abused. Social stigmatisation prevents the reporting of incidents that are not already public within the community. Fear of social rejection, economic marginalisation, and declining marriage prospects prevent survivors from reporting sexual assault. Often, victims immerse themselves in self-loathing, blaming themselves for the incident. With additional resources, families can be educated to protect their children and young adults, women made more aware of personal safety issues as a preventive measure, and survivors reintegrated back into society. Communities should be encouraged to report such crimes so that their true extent can be mapped and adequate response mechanisms designed.
   Acid attacks occur across both sexes and all age groups, although refusal of marriage or relationship offers still exposes 15-25 year olds to a higher risk. Of the female victims, 33 per cent were 15-25 years old, followed by 32 per cent and 27 per cent in age groups 26-35 and 36+, respectively. Reports also identify family disputes and land-related squabbles as other significant motives for acid violence.
   There is a pressing need for sustainable expansion, both in coverage and intensity. Advocacy and awareness-raising programs need to efficiently and urgently address proper identification and reporting of all violations, including incidents that are less public – such as those that happen inside the home.
   The BRAC research discovered that an alarming 86 per cent of rape victims and 70 per cent of torture victims receive no healthcare. Acid violence survivors were most treated, as sufficient financing in this area has made it possible to strengthen their organisational support network, particularly with the Acid Survivors’ Foundation (75.6 per cent of acid victims receive treatment, compared to 13.5 per cent of rape victims and 26.8 per cent of torture victims). Women, despite showing higher vulnerability, were being treated in fewer numbers, possibly as a result of financial constraints and inferior social position. Overall, 27 per cent of female victims receive treatment compared to 41 per cent of men).
   A vast proportion of violence against women and children goes unreported. Victims fear social rejection and additional aggression from perpetrators. For women, acid-throwing, attempted rape, and torture cases are least filed, at 12 per cent, 9 per cent, 4 per cent and 6 per cent respectively. Limited convictions favour the claimant, discouraging future victims from seeking legal help.
   Survivors of violent crimes essentially need emergency rehabilitation, and measures will vary based on the nature and severity of attacks. Victims often suffer from physical trauma, psychosocial and mental health problems, social stigma, restricted mobility, lack of socio-political network and poverty. ‘One-stop’ services are needed to effectively address victims’ immediate and long-term needs. In high-income countries, apart from the government, different non-government agencies are engaged in rehabilitative service delivery to the victims. In Bangladesh, such initiatives are yet to develop and operate.
   There is also an urgent need to increase awareness as a preventive measure. Advocacy campaigns in schools, civil society organisations, community groups and among local governing units should emphasise recognising signs of human rights abuse, and reporting incidents. Often, victims are afraid of continuing abuse by attackers. Increasing success in prosecuting abusers will encourage more people to come forward in reporting crimes. Investing in powerful advocacy and ensuring proper trial can also deter future aggressors.
   Fazlul Karim and Nayma Qayum work for the Research and Evaluation Division, BRAC

Barack Obama ran the US presidential race with colossal campaign promises. One of these promises was to reform the healthcare system, which has created a miserable public health situation in America. The United States is the only industrially advanced democracy where about 50 millions of its residents have no health insurance. Average healthcare cost per person is about 50 per cent higher compared to other advanced democracies. This is also a major reason for personal bankruptcy in America. The government-financed healthcare programmes – Medicaid (for low-income people and children) and Medicare (senior citizens) – are the biggest contributors to government budget deficits. Currently, these programmes cost the US treasury over one trillion dollars, which is expected to increase very rapidly.
   With the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, the healthcare debate has become very confusing as well as confrontational. The pivotal point of contention is the introduction of a public health insurance option. In the US, healthcare industries like hospitals, clinics, diagnostics facilities, etc are basically privately owned and operated. Employers are mainly responsible for providing health insurance to their employees, which they purchase from private health insurance companies. To counteract and contain the negative impacts of this unique healthcare system, President Obama has proposed creation of a public health insurance plan that will work side by side private insurance companies.
   The Republicans are absolutely opposed to the president’s proposal, while many Democrats are not comfortable with the plan. Thus, the Republicans, joined by conservative Democrats, want the public option off the table. This has been reflected in the senate finance committee vote on September 29. The committee has defeated the proposal for public plan.
   The most obstinate objection to public plan is its impact on burgeoning budget deficits and worsening national debt situations. In an article published in The Washington Post (August 24), Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, states: ‘President Obama’s plan for a government-run healthcare system is the wrong prescription, because it will hurt American families, small businesses and healthcare providers by raising care costs and increasing the deficit.’
   Steele is not alone in professing this belief. Gallop polls show that his belief is well shared by many Americans – Republicans, Democrats, and independents. Consequently, President Obama’s public option has often been described as a dead idea. Since this is a general feeling among the sceptical Americans, it must be taken seriously.
   The national debt situation in the US is very serious. As of September 30, US public debt is $11.81 trillion; on per capita basis this amounts to about $38,000. Since the estimated GDP is $13.84 trillion, it means that current the US national debt is about 85 per cent of her GDP. This debt is increasing by $1 trillion annually and servicing this debt costs the US treasury over $450 billion. The current budget deficit might shoot up to $1.84 trillion, when this fiscal year ends.
   The US spends annually about 16 per cent of her GDP on healthcare. About half of this amount, one estimate says, is spent by federal and state governments through Medicaid and Medicare. This means that total government spending is about $1.11 trillion annually. If the public option is introduced, it will add another $90 billion (about 8.6 per cent) to the treasury.
   These are the facts about the US national debt, budget deficits, healthcare costs and the costs of introducing public options. So how much the public plan would add to the burgeoning budget deficits and deteriorating national debt situation?
   In July, the independent Congressional Budget Office estimated that the house version of health care would produce a deficit of $239 billion over 10 years. However, Max Baucus, chairman of the senate finance committee, has now unveiled a reform plan that would cost $856 billion. He said this ‘commonsense package’ would work for patients, healthcare providers and the economy and would not ‘add a dime to the deficit.’
   However, Mitch McConnell, senate minority leader, has rejected the plan immediately accusing the ‘Democrats in Washington’ of ‘pushing another trillion-dollar bill or calling for more spending, more taxes, and more debt.’
   Apparently, the debate is insolvable because the source of disagreement is not economic facts; the reasons for disagreement are ideological as well as partisan. This is clear from McConnell’s statement: ‘The American people want healthcare reform — not with more government, but with less. They don’t want a new government-run system; they want us to repair the system we’ve got.’
   The economic facts are that the plan would cost $90 billion, as proposed by the president, which is only 8.6 per cent of government health spending, 4.9 per cent of annual budget deficit and 0.8 per cent of national debt. Even if the plan is not self-financed, how much can it possibly add to annual budget deficit or the national debt?
   The US is incurring national debt to the tune of 85 per cent of its GDP. It will continue to do so if circumstances and conveniences command. But members of Congress are not prepared to accept deficits for their uninsured constituents.
   Some would say representatives and senators have been bought by the vested interests. Other would say they are blinded by their ideological mindsets for free enterprise and small government. Whatever might be the reason, the budget deficit seems simply a noise to cover up the real intention behind discarding public plan from the proposed healthcare reform in the US.
   Khandakar Qudrat-I Elahi is a research associate at the York Centre for Asian Research, York University, Canada.

The facts and Iraq’s behaviour show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction… These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
   Washington’s official justification for America’s war on Iraq, announced to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003
   
   THEN in July 2003 the US secretary of state reiterated that there was ‘very strong intelligence… that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons.’ And there were many more unequivocal and detailed statements about the reliability, the certainty, of intelligence, notably from the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and Washington’s Dick Cheney.
   At that time those of us who considered these assertions to be nonsense were shocked and chastened. After all, the leaders of the world’s largest military and surveillance machine were declaring that they had ‘solid intelligence’ regarding a terrifying arsenal of evil weaponry that would be used by Iraq’s maniacal leader. All the intelligence gathered by thousands of US spooks and amazingly sophisticated technical devices couldn’t be wrong, could it?
   Before the war on Iraq the US was spending about 50 billion dollars a year on gathering and processing information (it’s now about $70 billion), and with that sort of cash and exotic technical activity being devoted to discovering that Saddam’s ‘efforts to reconstitute his nuclear programme have been focused on acquiring the third and last component – sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion,’ as we were assured, then all the official reports and announcements and New York Times’ revelations must have been true.
   But they weren’t.
   The whole thing was a farrago of baloney: it was tripe, hogwash, codswallop and claptrap from beginning to end. There were no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons programs of any sort. And there were no apologies, either, from the demented barbarians in Washington who lied to the world and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and wrecked their country.
   And now we are being told that Iran’s nuclear programme is as dangerous as the one Saddam didn’t have.
   On September 25 London’s Times newspaper (among others) reported that ‘The West warned Iran that it will face fresh sanctions by December unless it can persuade the world of a “profound change” in its nuclear stance after the existence of its secret underground uranium enrichment plant was uncovered.’
   But the plant was not ‘uncovered’ by the West. An International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman stated that ‘on September 21 Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel-enrichment plant is under construction in the country. The letter stated that the enrichment level would be up to 5 per cent.’ So then the Times tried to save face by claiming that ‘Reports from Washington [more of these generous but always anonymous sources] indicate that Iran had learnt of the West’s move and declared [the plant] formally to the IAEA.’
   How fascinating. So Iran knows so much about America’s surveillance of its nuclear facilities – and the intentions of its State and Defence Departments, not to mention the White House – that just before the omniscient US intelligence agencies were about to reveal Iran’s secrets to the world they were pre-empted by the equally all-knowing Iranians.
   Some other reports were also intriguing. The New York Times, ever attentive to anonymous ‘senior officials’, (possibly like those who caused it to believe, endorse and publicise the ‘intelligence’ that led to the war on Iraq), carried a piece on September 26 to the effect that ‘officials said that they developed a detailed picture about work on the facility from multiple human intelligence sources, as well as satellite imagery. A senior official said that intelligence was regularly shared among American, British and French spy agencies, and that Israeli officials were told about the complex years ago.’
   ‘Multiple human intelligence sources’, indeed. So the CIA has spies lurking and working in Iran’s nuclear establishment and government. Not only that, but America’s premier Intelligence Agency tells ‘officials’ who tell reporters, and thus the world, that it has such assets. How professional, to be sure.
   But if the CIA has all these sources with such amazing access, then there must be information available on the level of enrichment of uranium that is planned. Perhaps the ‘officials’ who so generously leak highly classified information to selected reporters could indicate what it is?
   The deranged Iranian President Ahmadinejad, in one of his clearer moments, said that the newly disclosed nuclear facility was not scheduled to begin operations for another 18 months and that ‘It’s not a secret site. If it was, why would we have informed the IAEA about it a year ahead of time?’ Then Ahmadinejad said that the agency was welcome to inspect the facility.
   If it is found that the enrichment capability is in fact 5 per cent, then there will be a lot of stupid-looking people in the US and other western countries, as this is nowhere near the approximately 90 percent needed to manufacture nuclear weapons. But be assured, if this majestically hyped affair collapses into nothing because the ‘multiple human intelligence sources’ (if they exist) are found to be fantasising liars, and if the IAEA inspections find no evidence of weapon-grade enrichment, then those responsible for spreading the story will not confess their blunders.
   The last lot of liars, under Bush, have never admitted that they deliberately led their country into an unnecessary, disastrous and fantastically costly war. And if the current bunch of war fanatics have their way this time, and persuade Mr Obama to attack Iran because they imagine it may one day be nuclear-capable, they will never admit that they made a total mess of the whole thing, either.
   President Obama emphasised nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation at the UN Security Council meeting he chaired in September. He declared he had ‘outlined a comprehensive agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons,’ adding that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ‘says that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; that nations with nuclear weapons have a responsibility to move toward disarmament.’
   Quite so. Most gratifying. Majestically desirable. But the elephant in the UN room, the critical mass, as it were, whose nuclear arsenal is steadfastly ignored by all nuclear powers and the west in general, is Israel, the country that pays no attention to anything that is said by the UN Security Council regarding any of its illegal actions.
   Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons. It has signed no treaty concerning their construction or control. Its uranium enrichment facilities have never been seen by any inspector, and never will be. It has no intention of ‘moving towards’ nuclear disarmament, and Mr Obama knows this perfectly well.
   But we might ask why that ever-willing ‘senior official’ told the New York Times that intelligence about Iran’s nuclear programme was not only ‘regularly shared among American, British and French spy agencies,’ but that ‘Israeli officials were told about the complex years ago.’
   How intriguing. Here we have three members of the UN Security Council, with nuclear capability, swapping intelligence about Iran. But why did Washington (according to the New York Times’ anonymous sources) tell Israel about it?
   In fact the complex wasn’t known about ‘years ago’, but it’s still intriguing that Israel is well and truly in the loop about US intelligence concerning possible nuclear developments in other countries.
   Why is Israel so privileged as to be informed about America’s most sensitive intelligence operations?
   

Crossfire killing

As it seems, ‘crossfire’ is turning into a preferred option to the law enforcing agencies to maintain the ‘law and order’. But this extrajudicial killing evinces the powerlessness of the people in a democratic country. One of the principle maxims of natural justice ‘man cannot be the judge of his own cause’ — is being violated by ‘crossfire’; ‘shootout’; or ‘encounter’. Triggering a crossfire competition among law enforcement agencies is not only transmuting them into a de facto death squad but also undermining the role of judiciary in safeguarding the right to life and protection of life which are engrafted in Articles 31 and 32 of the Constitution.
   A citizen
   University of Dhaka

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