It was 8 o’clock at night. It had been an hour I was waiting
for the bus. Thought of going home early, but as all the buses were overloaded
with people, I could not get in easily. Finally I got in the bus and managed to
get a seat. I saw a girl entering in the bus somehow but could not manage a
seat. I just looked around and asked her to go and get a seat on back but she
hardly could pass that small route to the seat and no man left a way to that
seat. Everyone was busy to block her way and she got stuck in that place. So,
this is the current situation of bus transport in our country, Bangladesh.
As we don’t have an available train facilities inside the
city, most of us have to depend on the bus, especially the middle and lower class
people who can’t afford a car of their own. We do have auto and rickshaw as other
means of transport, but auto’s are highly expensive and rickshaws are not
allowed in the entire route. So, bus is the ultimate solution for transport in
the city.
As the population is very high and most of them belong to the
lower and middle class, we have to depend on bus. There are hardly few seats in
the bus for woman separately, where half of the country’s population is women.
The government bus has only 6 to 9 seats which are not enough for woman. So,
the woman has to get in the bus and have to stand with every other guy.
Standing along with the guys would have never been a problem if there would
have been mutual respect for each other’s gender. But what a woman gets while
riding in a bus is indirect physical harassment.
You may question me that, “we have heard about physical
harassment. But what is that indirect harassment?” To make it more specific, I have
named this kind of harassment as ‘indirect harassment.’ Harassment need not to
be physical only, with the gesture also a woman can be harassed.
For an example, when a woman gets into a crowded bus, the
thing she has to face is getting a seat which guys hardly will sacrifice for a
woman. Even the 6 /9 seats reserved for women, they hardly leave that for a
woman. Moreover, if the woman does not get the seat, the male around her try to
harass her by touching the untouchable parts of her body. From the back and forth
they try to harass her in such a way that she would never complain. If a woman
somehow complains, there are hardly found anyone who will stand by her.
Moreover, there are other kinds of harassment which is also harassment
but by not touching the body part, but by gesture. We can also get a clear
picture of man harassing a woman by his eyes and expressions. Some guys try to
look at girls in such a way that that embarrass the girl. Similarly, some guy’s
smiles at the girl and with different gesture harass the girl in such a way it
makes the girl uncomfortable. Even, sometimes guys follow the girl till home
and keep bothering continuously. These are nothing but a little example of the
incident happens with the girls on everyday bus ride.
Not only indirect harassment, even we have set examples of
direct physical harassment in the bus journey. So, a journey by bus is nothing
but a journey through hell for a woman which is happening each and every day.
There is no protest and no say about it. Now we the women have learnt how to
survive in this as we choose to be silent mostly. But do those culprits deserve
our silence? Should we let it happen? We are modern women of the century, if we
don’t take a step forward, the country will never change and these kinds of
harassment will always continue to happen. So, why not take a step forward make
a change to the country.
By Debesree
