By Tim Katoga
Lesbian couples in Bangladesh were arrested for marrying each other in what is described as the country’s first same-sex marriage despite laws criminalising the union. The young couple ran away to the capital Dhaka to get married in secret, but it was not long before the police found and arrested them.
Shibronty Roy Puja, a 16-year-old Hindu, and Sanjida Akter, 21-year-old Muslim, who met Sanjida was tutoring Shibronty, recently eloped from southwestern Pirojpur and came to the capital city of Dhaka to marry and start a new life together.
But one of the women’s fathers filed a missing person’s report after his daughter fled. Police started searching for the woman, where they found both of them living together in a rented house shortly after in the capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka.
Homosexual relationships including same-sex marriages are illegal in Bangladesh and are punishable with life in prison or up to ten years of hard labour. Public displays of affection between friends of the same sex are common and do not raise any controversy within the country, however, there is a strong objection to homosexuality arising from the religious traditions of the majority Muslim country. A very few homosexual communities do exist in Bangladesh, but they are the hidden minorities.
