Law must recognise rape threats as audible intent
On September 5, The Daily Star published an opinion piece titled "Threatening to gang-rape is not just vile, it's a crime." It recounted the case of a male student of Dhaka University who posted on social media that a female candidate in the student union elections should be "gang-raped." His grotesque threat led to nothing more than a six-month suspension. Such leniency is staggering in a country where, between January and August this year alone, 140 gang rapes were reported, according to Ain o Salish Kendra. The contradiction is glaring: rapists can be sent to the gallows, yet those who publicly fantasise about gang rape walk away with symbolic punishments.
This commentary is, in essence, a spinoff of The Daily Star opinion piece, carrying the argument further. A threat of rape or sexual assault is not just vile, it is itself violence, a weapon of intimidation that silences women and excludes them from public life. A man who utters such words exposes his predatory instinct. He should be behind bars, or at the very least forced to wear an ankle monitor, for he has already declared his capacity for violence. Wearing a tracking device may well be one of the most effective deterrents for all future rape and sexual assault threateners. It will also signal to others that there will be no escape from scrutiny once such threats are made.
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Threat of sexual assault—from harassment to molestation to even rape—must be treated as a crime too. They are assaults on dignity and security. To dismiss such threats as casual banter is like saying a gun pointed at someone's head is not violence until the trigger is pulled.
Other countries recognise this clearly. In India, after the 2012 Delhi gang rape, the country's criminal laws have been reformed. Threatening a woman with rape, even online, can be punishable now by up to seven years in prison under certain provisions of the Criminal (Amendment) Act of 2013.In the US, under certain circumstances, federal law treats a threat of sexual assault as a felony, an offence punishable by imprisonment. In the UK, threatening rape is prosecutable under both the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and the Sexual Offences Act of 2003. In Saudi Arabia's Sharia-based system, threats of sexual violence can lead to long prison terms. Civilised societies treat threats of sexual violence as crimes in themselves. Although certain provisions of Bangladesh's Penal Code, 1860 and the Cyber Security Ordinance, 2025 can be interpreted to classify online rape threats as criminal offence, there is no specific provision that deals with hate speech against women.
However, Bangladesh acknowledges rape as one of the gravest crimes. In 2020, the parliament amended the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act to introduce death penalty after waves of outrage over rape incidents. Since then, courts have sentenced perpetrators to death by hanging. But here lies the contradiction: while the act of rape may lead to the gallows, the threat of rape or sexual assault—which can drive victims to suicide, force families to withdraw daughters from schools, and destroy futures—is often treated as a minor mischief.
In a country where political thuggery, campus violence, and systemic impunity dominate, extraordinary deterrence for sexual assault threats is required. Prison terms alone, often reduced or commuted through influence, do little to change behaviour. If men can terrorise women with impunity, they will continue to use sexual violence as an instrument of control. That is why threats must be met not with stricter punishments that permanently diminish the perpetrators' capacity to act on their words.
One of the strongest deterrents is to ensure that offenders cannot commit the act. Castration—chemical or surgical—has long been debated in Europe and the US for repeat sex offenders. Countries like Poland, South Korea, and Indonesia have legalised chemical castration for convicted child rapists. In the US, several states allow it as a condition of parole. By surgically rendering perpetrators impotent, society sends an unambiguous message: the body of a woman is not a battlefield for political, religious, or personal dominance.
South Asia is plagued by what can only be called a culture of impunity. In Bangladesh, the word "eve-teasing" once masked a widespread epidemic of harassment, stalking, and threats of sexual violence. Girls as young as 12 have taken their own lives after repeated threats of rape or molestation. This is not just harassment; it is the systemic silencing of half the population. Perpetrators are emboldened to continue their criminal behaviour when they know the worst consequence is a brief arrest or, at most, a few years in prison, often followed by a political connection to secure release. The state must respond with punishments that are permanent, public, and proportionate to the terror inflicted.
Justice must mean more than symbolic outrage. Threats of rape and sexual assault should be criminalised as felonies, not treated as misdemeanour. Offenders should be listed in a national registry, their names permanently recorded as threats to society. Victims must receive not only legal protection but also psychological care and, where necessary, relocation to a safe environment.
Every society that tolerates threats of sexual violence is complicit in perpetuating gendered terror. Words can shatter lives, silence voices, and deny women their right to safety and dignity. The fight against rape culture must therefore move beyond condemning the act to eradicating the threats that normalise it. If men can threaten rape or sexual assault without irreversible consequences, these crimes will remain weapons of dominance. To treat such threats lightly is to ignore pathology at its earliest stage. Law must recognise rape threats not as speech, but as an audible intent—punishable and deterred. Only then will women trust that the law is on their side, and only then will men think twice before weaponising such threats to control women. Anything less is surrender.
Dr Abdullah A Dewan is a former physicist and nuclear engineer at the Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission and professor emeritus of economics at Eastern Michigan University in the US.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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