DHAKA: Former
Bangladeshi students are turning to social media to detail allegations of
"rampant" sex abuse at the hands of teachers and older pupils in
Islamic schools, breaking their silence on a taboo topic in the conservative
country. Child abuse in madrasas has long gone unreported in Bangladesh, a
Muslim-majority nation where hardline Islamist groups draw their support from
the tens of thousands of schools across the nation of 169 million people.

But in the wake
of a brutal murder of a teenage girl who was burnt to death in April after
accusing her headteacher of sexual assault, such incidents have been subject to
national scrutiny and debate for the first time. In July alone, at least five
madrasa teachers were arrested on rape charges against boys and girls under
their care. Several senior students were also held by police over the rape and
beheading of an 11-year-old orphan, while a Dhaka cleric and seminary teacher
was charged with sexually assaulting a dozen boys aged between 12 and 19.

The accusations
reveal how students from poorer and rural backgrounds, whose parents send them
to madrasas as they are more affordable than secular schools, are
disproportionately affected by the abuse. Rights activists said the assaults --
which range from violent rapes to forcible kissing -- are so pervasive that the
cases reported in the media are just the tip of the iceberg. "For years
these crimes eluded spotlight due to sensitivity of the subject," Abdus
Shahid, the head of child rights' group Bangladesh Shishu Odhikar Forum said.
"Devout Muslims send children to madrasas, but they don't speak up about
these crimes as they feel it would harm these key religious institutions."

'Widespread and
rampant'

Hojaifa al
Mamduh, who studied in three madrasas in the capital Dhaka, published a series
of posts on Facebook in July detailing the abuses endured by students including
himself. The assaults were "so widespread in the madrasas, every student
who has studied there knows about it", Al Mamduh, now a journalism student
at a Dhaka University, told AFP. "Many madrasa teachers I know consider
sex with children a lesser crime than consensual extramarital sex with women.
Since they live in the same dormitories, the perpetrators can easily hide their
crimes and put pressure on their poor students to keep mum."

The 23-year-old's
posts generated heated debate in the country, and he was personally threatened.
He was accused of being "an agent of Jews and Christians" and
smearing the "sacred image" of a madrasa by one social media user.
Another reminded him of the fate of Avijit Roy, a top Bangladeshi atheist
blogger and writer who was hacked to death by Islamist extremists in 2015. But
his posts encouraged others to share their own experiences of alleged sex
crimes.

Mostakimbillah
Masum, who published his story on a feminist website, said he was "first
raped by an elder student in my madrasa when I was just seven". The
25-year-old told AFP that another one of his rapists was "a teacher who
made me unconscious and raped me. It traumatized me permanently".
"Dozens of madrasa students I know were either raped or witnessed rapes
and sexual assaults of their fellow students," he added. "It is so
rampant almost every madrasa has a fair share of such stories."

Culture of
impunity

Madrasa teachers
have strongly denied the allegations, calling them "negative
propaganda". Mahfuzul Haq, a principal of a madrasa in Mohammadpur where
Al Mamduh studied, told AFP "one or two isolated incidents can
happen" as there were 20,000 madrasas in the South Asian nation.
"Those who don't like to study in madrasas are spreading these
stories," he added.

A spokesman for
hardline Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islami, which represents a coalition of
thousands of madrasas, said his organization told a recent conference of 1,200
principals to take "tough stand against any sex crimes". However,
there has been growing acknowledgment of the alleged offences. Pro-Islamic
website Fateh24.com, viewed as a voice for the madrasas, pointed out in a
report that children were at risk in smaller seminaries run by just one or two
teachers and that had no oversight from governing bodies.

Editor Iftekhar
Jamil, a former madrasa student and teacher, added that the cases were
"not isolated" incidents and called for closed-circuit cameras to be
installed in students' sleeping quarters. "Instead of looking for
conspiracies, these madrasas must take up responsibility and adopt an action
plan to tackle these crimes," he said. 
- AFP