Madrassa abuse case prompts calls for reform

A young madrassa student neglected to pray five times daily. As a punishment, her teacher burned her legs with a heated spatula.

By Sheikh Adnan Fahad for Khabar South Asia in Dhaka

May 18, 2012 (http://www.khabarsouthasia.com/en_GB/articles/apwi/articles/features/2012/05/18/feature-02)
 

Abdul Jalil never imagined his eight-year-old child would be subjected to such a cruel punishment for a minor transgression.

Jannatul Ferdous, his daughter, was admitted to a madrassa in Dhaka in the hope of getting a good education in religious studies. Early this month, that hope turned to a nightmare.

On May 1st, Jannatul was among 14 minor girls whose legs were allegedly seared with a hot spatula by their madrassa teacher "to give them the experience of hell-fire" for failing to observe the ritual of offering prayers five times a day.

"Now when I see my daughter I feel great pain in my heart. She could not sleep for several days and she had fever," Jalil told Khabar South Asia.

"Her injuries are yet to be healed," he added.

Jesmin Akhter, 38, a teacher at Talimul Qur'an Mahila Madrassa in the capital's Kadamtali area, is now in jail pending her trial. During preliminary interrogation Akhter admitted to the abuse, police said.

Talking to Khabar, Biplab Barua, a lawyer, said if police can investigate the case properly and produce strong evidence before the court, Akhter may get life imprisonment.

"Under the Women and Child Repression Control Act, there is no doubt that the madrassa teacher committed a serious offence," Barua said. "She should be given an exemplary punishment. The success of this case will largely depend on the efficiency and capacity of the lawyer who will stand for the complainant."

The incident, analysts say, underscores flaws in the system of religious education in Bangladesh, where many Islamic madrassas operate outside of government control, and with widely differing standards.

In Qaumi [community] madrassas, the focus is almost entirely religious and bans on corporal punishment are often ignored.

"You will find hundreds of madrassas in Bangladesh established here and there over which the government has almost no control," said Lutfar Rahman, Chairman of Journalism and Media Studies Department at Jahangirnagar University.

Sheikh Shahbaz Riad of the Dhaka Teachers' Training College says students at such madrassas are not receiving the same level of education as their peers at other schools in Bangladesh.

"The sole focus on religious studies in Qaumi madrassas makes its students religiously blind,"

Riad told Khabar. The government, he said, must step up its monitoring of such institutions and a modern curriculum should be introduced into its system.

In the Alia [government-regulated] madrassas, apart from Islamic studies, English, math and science are also taught, and that makes all the difference, Riad said.

According to Rahman, the solution lies in enforcing standards across the board and bringing all schools under government purview.

"The government either must bring all students under one system or appoint qualified teachers in the madrassas," he told Khabar.