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DHAKA: Bangladesh’s leading women’s rights group reported on Wednesday a dramatic surge in rape cases it blamed on worsening security, with police calling the general law and order situation a “crisis.”
Fauzia Muslim, president of Bangladesh Mohila Parishad group, said the number of sexual assaults in the first six months of 2025 nearly equalled the total for all of last year — a period that also included the turmoil during mass protests that toppled the government in August 2024.
“Violence against women increases when there is a deterioration of law and order,” Muslim told AFP, warning of “a deliberate attempt in society to create an ‘anti-women’ atmosphere.”
The rights group based its findings on sexual assault cases published in national newspapers.
According to those reports, 364 rapes were recorded in 2024, compared with 354 cases in the first half of 2025. The group said that the real figures were likely much higher.
Police data shows that more than 11,000 women and children faced different types of repression in the first six months of 2025, up from just over 9,000 in the same period last year.
Police did not comment specifically on the rise of sexual assaults, but said a wider deterioration of the security situation was troubling.
“This is a crisis situation, and the police are trying their best to rein it in,” police spokesperson A H M Sahadat Hossaine said.
Another rights group, Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), reported similar trends.
“The situation is undoubtedly alarming,” said ASK coordinator Abu Ahmed Faijul Kabir.
“What we are seeing is very different from what we have expected after a revolution overturned the governance structure.”
Muslim said that women were facing increased pressure.
“Inciting communalism and hatred toward women is making them more vulnerable to violence,” she said, without naming any specific group.
Women’s rights activists have expressed concern at the rise of hard-line Islamist groups, which have gained strength since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s authoritarian government.
The Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people will hold national elections in February, the first polls since the mass uprising last year.

BANGKOK: Thailand will give legal employment rights to thousands of Myanmar refugees now living in camps along the border between the two countries, the government said on Wednesday, a move that won the praise of the United Nations’ refugee agency.
The policy change will grant the right to legal work in Thailand to around 80,000 refugees, many of whom have been living in the camps for more than 40 years, the government said.
Among the eligible Myanmar refugees living in nine temporary shelters along the Thai-Myanmar border since 1984, 42,601 are of working age, it said.
The decision could also help solve a potential migrant labor shortage in Thailand following an armed border conflict with Cambodia, which led to an exodus of Cambodian workers.
Around 520,000 Cambodians — about 12 percent of the total workforce — were employed in Thailand before the fighting erupted in July, according to official Labor Ministry data.
As of July 25, Thailand also employed nearly 3 million Myanmar workers, the ministry said Friday. It has previously said that migrant labor is critical in sectors like construction, agriculture and services.
Government spokesperson Jirayu Hongsub said on Wednesday that the Thai cabinet backed a Labor Ministry proposal to allow long-staying refugees from Myanmar living in Thailand to work, a move that officials say will bolster the economy.
The UN Refugee Agency described the policy as a “strategic investment” that would unlock the potential of refugees, enabling them to support their families and also spur local demand and job opportunities.
The agency added in a statement on Wednesday that the expansion in employment could lift GDP and strengthen economic resilience. It would also reduce reliance on humanitarian aid among the refugees, nearly half of whom were born in the camps.
“With this policy shift, Thailand transforms hosting refugees into an engine of growth – for refugees, for host communities and for the nation as a whole,” said Tammi Sharpe, the UN agency’s representative in Thailand, in the statement.
The policy could also set an example to other countries in the face of aid cuts for millions of displaced people around the world, the agency said.