Rebuilding Lives, Not Just Compensation: Survivors of the July 2024 Protests in Bangladesh
By Alvi Hakim, Legal and Operations Advisor, BLAST, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh
In the immediate aftermath of the July 2024 student protests, BLAST, carried out a fact-finding mission to document the realities faced by survivors, with a particular focus on severely injured survivors in urgent need of medical and financial assistance. We worked through hospital referrals and community networks, conducted in-depth interviews, recorded injuries and urgent needs, and assisted with documentation for immediate medical and financial support where possible. In total, we documented 82 severely injured survivors, including people living with irreversible blindness, spinal and lower-body injuries, hearing loss, and profound psychological trauma. What emerged from our findings was a wider structural problem faced by survivors, with the physical injury often only the tip of the iceberg. Very quickly, it gave way to severe financial hardship and, in many cases, virtual economic collapse, bureaucratic barriers that blocked survivors and their families from accessing state support, and a deepening sense of social vulnerability and mental distress. The findings also reflect a broader point made in our joint briefing paper with REDRESS: reparation cannot be reduced to compensation alone. It must include rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of non-repetition, delivered through survivor-centred, accessible, non-discriminatory, and gender-sensitive processes. The current administrative schemes were not designed as comprehensive reparations programmes capable of addressing the full range of harm survivors continue to carry. We saw exactly why that matters in the homes of the survivors themselves. Parvin, a 27-year-old garments worker from Dhaka, was caught in police violence on her way home from work. Six shotgun pellets destroyed her cornea. After we documented her case, urgent support was mobilised, a donor cornea was flown in from Sri Lanka, and surgery was performed. But it was too late. The damage was irreversible, and she lost vision in both eyes. When we spoke, she showed me photographs of herself from before and said: “Look, I used to look so pretty … I am no longer pretty. I do not know how long he will keep me.” Her case showed with painful clarity how state violence can intersect with domestic abuse, dependency, and gendered insecurity inside the home.
In Chattogram, we met Armaan, a teenage boy who sustained severe lower-body gunshot injuries that left him permanently immobile and dependent on assistance for movement. His mother was already caring for another child with significant learning disabilities. When she approached us, she asked for help securing Armaan’s birth certificate so he could access state financial assistance, something her husband was intentionally blocking out of spite. Her case made clear that the violence survivors face is not only physical. It is also administrative, and it often falls hardest on caregivers.
Across these and many other cases we documented, one theme came through repeatedly: Survivors were not asking for charity their demand was to be able to want to work again, regain financial and social independence. This must be our barometer for the newly elected government of Bangladesh. Justice will not be measured merely by the number of prosecutions announced, but by whether the survivors can rebuild their lives with dignity.
This article was first published in the Community Corner of our Just Reparation newsletter. These contributions are invaluable in enriching our collective understanding and fostering meaningful dialogue within the reparation community of practice. If you would like to be featured, we encourage you to submit your contributions to [email protected].