October 30, 2025
DHAKA – I have been taking public buses in Dhaka since 2016. Over the years, I have trained myself to move like I’m trespassing; handbag clutched to my chest, eyes lowered, spine tense, always calculating where to sit, where not to.
I have been groped, brushed against, stared down, whispered at. And like every woman I know, I learnt to absorb it.
But the recent video of a young woman being slapped and abused on a public bus tore through that learned endurance.
She was simply commuting on a regular day, wearing jeans and a shirt. A man made an obscene comment about her clothes. When she protested, he slapped her.
In full public view. In 2025, no one stopped him. No one said a word. People watched, filmed, and scrolled later.
That young woman hit back with a sandal, standing her ground, and represents millions who cannot. Women who shrink in their seats, who clench their fists in fear, who remain quiet because they know speaking up will only bring more insult, more scrutiny. Because in this country, when a man raises his hand, it is the woman who is blamed.
Commuting in Dhaka is a gamble with dignity. Most buses refuse to take women; not out of consideration, but out of pure economics. A woman takes up one seat. That space could hold five men, standing. After evening falls, the city turns even more brutal. Transport choices shrink. Rickshaw fares double. Ride-sharing becomes a risk and buses thin out. Many women spend a painful portion of their hard-earned salaries on private rides, not for comfort, but for survival.
And this is not an isolated outrage.
In May last year, at the Munshiganj river terminal, a man whipped two women with a belt. The crowd cheered, filmed, watched and did nothing. He later walked out on bail to a hero’s welcome, escorted by a motorcycle convoy.
On June 4, expelled Jamaat activist Akash Chowdhury, caught on camera kicking a woman in Chattogram, emerged from jail draped in flower garlands. In March, Mostafa Asif Arnob was similarly celebrated after securing bail for allegedly harassing a Dhaka University student over her attire.
Three viral videos. Three public humiliations. Three men rewarded for violence.
According to BRAC’s Safe Roads for Women report (2018), 94 percent of Bangladeshi women have faced harassment – verbal, physical, or otherwise– while using public transport. A 2022 survey by UNDP, NHRC, and CRI revealed 87 percent of women across 24 districts have been harassed at least once in their lives.
These are not just numbers. They are every woman who sits rigid on a bus and prays she makes it home with her body, her voice, her spirit intact.
The man who slapped that woman did so because he knew there would be no consequence. Because countless men before him have walked free. Because this country treats women’s safety as negotiable; something to be debated, not defended.
And yet, she fought back. She refused to cower. She raised her hand, a sandal against a slap, and in that defiance lay the fury of countless silences.
Her act was not just self-defence; it was protest. A reminder that every woman has the right to occupy space, to speak, to exist without fear.