Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) One Stop Crisis Centre (OCC)Photo: STAR

The incidents of rape are increasing in the port city at an alarming rate.
One Stop Crisis Centre (OCC) in Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH) sources said the number of rape-victims was 98 in 2010, 73 in 2009 and 58 in 2008.
Sources said the real figure is much more as all the victims do not come to take treatment in the OCC. Many of them take treatment in the private clinics and hospitals. It is very tough to dig out the actual figure as the private clinics and hospitals refuse to give the data, maintaining secrecy about their patients. Porno CDs are sold at different spots like New Market area and Station Road area influencing the youngsters for committing the sex-related crimes. Moreover, the cyber-cafes have become the centres of watching pornography for the students.
CMCH Deputy Director Dr Saroj Kumar Barua said real picture is more vulnerable than it is seen in black and white.
He said sex-education and adolescent health education should be included in the textbooks to lessen the sex-related crimes.
He said the easy access to pornography is one of the main reasons for increasing sex-related crimes in the city.
“The incidents of rape and sex-related crimes are increasing in the port city,” said Advocate Rehana Begum Ranu, president of Fight for Women's Rights. She said one of the main reasons for increasing such crimes is the girls' presence in outdoor activities.
Rehana said the figure recorded in the hospitals does not show the real feature of the incidents of rape as many of them are not admitted to the hospitals. “One will also be misguided with the figure recorded in the police stations as many of such incidents are resolved locally despite the incidents of rape are not negotiable according to law,” she added.
Premier University Vice-Chancellor and renowned sociologist Prof Anupam Sen said decaying of social values, especially the middle-class values, is putting the society at stake in terms of morality. He said the young generations are now taking the bad lessons of western culture instead of taking the good lessons. Most of them are now detached from our own culture due to easy excess to the internet and electronic media, he said.
Prof Anupam said the television serials aired in different foreign media do not show respect to the women that impact directly on the youngsters.
Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP) Commissioner Abul Kashem at a meeting on law and order situation on January 17 said 26 incidents of rape were recorded in 2010.
Kashem told journalists that some of the victims do not inform about the incidents to the police stations.
He said it is the moral degradation of the society for the reason behind the increase of sex-related crimes. “The moral lesson should be learnt at the family level to reduce this kind of crime,” he said.
An adolescent girl was gangraped by five youngsters, one of them was her boyfriend, at the top of Matijharna hill in Lalkhan Bazar area under Khulsi Police Station in the port city at dead of night on January 1 this year.
The culprits threw her from the hilltop after rape. The girl, however, survived as she fell on the roof of a tin-shed house. The locals recovered her senseless body and rushed her to the Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH).
Police recovered the body of a woman from the top of Batali Hill under Khulsi Police Station on Monday morning. Khulsi Police suspect that the woman might have been killed after rape. Sub-Inspector Ekramul Huq said the body was sent to CMCH morgue for postmortem.
Mohammad Afzal Hossain, a former chairman of the Department of Psychology, University of Chittagong, said an adolescent can create a lot of social problems like committing rape and other anti-social activities if he does not grow up socially.
How an adolescent will react in the society completely depends upon how he is treated in the family, he added.
“If he is deprived of proper education as well as love and affection at family he will possibly be an anti-social element,” Prof Afzal said, adding that mixing with spoiled men during adolescent period is another vital factor for him to commit crimes like rape.
Bangladesh Human Rights Commission, Chittagong President Advocate Abul Hashem said many children are not getting proper affection and attention from their parents as their parents remain busy with their professions that become obstacles to their growth as a sensitive human being.