Raping minors in Bhutan's compassionate Buddhism

23-8014, Netherlands.Compassionate Buddhists, raping the minors in Bhutan has been growing wildly. Rape, which was once one of  the government’s tool to execute  forcible exile in order to reduce population of the Hindu minority citizens has grown up as a serious social problem in the Buddhist communities where addicted rapists continued their recur.

Counting only the reported cases, 13 minors are raped in 5 months, 35 minors a year. This means more than 3 minors are raped every month. The actual number of the rape cases against the minors must be quite higher than this because most of the crime is concealed both by the government machinery and the victim themselves. If the rape of the minors is already so rampant, considering unusual and merciless act against the innocent girl child, raping adult girls must be going on wildly in Bhutan for many years.

More awesome behind the act of raping minors is the fact that the rapist are mostly the ones closely related to the victims. The perpetrators are mostly the victim’s  father, uncles, step-fathers and guardians, in-laws and the government officials including the state military. Such incidents are taking place in the economically disadvantaged families where the perpetrator is responsible for the upbringing of the girl child. Girl child as young as 10 years are being raped and in one reported case, a 11 year old girl gave birth to a premature baby.

Looking at the contour of the perpetrators in the Bhutanese communities for this type of heinous crimes, raping the minors- even one’s own daughter, own student and dearly disposed female children, and in contrast to Buddhism, professed as compassionate, its practitioners are those to whom one can never trust. There are laws concerning the rape and sexual abuse, but piled up as the bundle of papers. Unfolding it appears spit on their own face, condemns the highly advertised ‘Gross National Happiness’ as the development philosophy. How can the society be happy when their weakest section of the population are constantly threatened with such a heinous acts and left unprotected?. The government machinery, the media, would ignore this crime as it did in the past for this obvious reason, unless coincidently the crime highlights itself as the matter of intolerance to ambiguity rather than by seeking justice or remedial measures.

Refugees percentage per districts of Bhutan, exiled to Nepal and drove further away to Western countries

Rape was a clandestine strategy of the government against the minority Lhotshampas in the six Southern districts in early 1990 when the absolute monarchy of that time wanted to design the demographic pattern to enable the elite Drukpas hold on with the power even after the democratic government would be envisaged. Reporting of rape incident  there pertains to state infidelity. As such about  20% of the state population, mainly the Lhotshampas were forced out of the country, organised rape being the unbearable trauma that succumbed them with success. It seemed there is no concern what their religion prescribes and how the societal norms would treat against the acts of rape.

Then, reporting publicly on 25^th July 2014 that ’13 minors are raped in five months’ came on the limelight  when a journalist Tashi Dema of the state owned weekly penned down the dilemma of a student who doesn’t want to go home during the school break. The girl revealed the fact that her father, a military officer, has been sexually assaulting her, including against her younger sister, over the last eight years.

Goshi school still occupied by Royal Bhutan Army since 1990.

The victims of human rights violation in Bhutan doesn’t have the chance to ventilate their grievances, nor can seek legal support freely for justice, as there is no human rights organisations to check such crimes. The only non-governmental organisation called RENEW whose chief is one of the queens, provides nothing besides the counselling and does not record the yell of the victims in its website. Rape affects not only those victims but also the female members of the family putting them in awkward position.

This is one of the reasons that the kingdom of Bhutan, even after having democratic government since 2008, is being confronted with the highest rate of suicide, mostly among the youth and poor famers 90% of whom live in the rural villages below the poverty line.  Bhutanese Buddhists are proving by their character as the most barbaric and not at all trustworthy entities of the world.