Rape as a weapon in Bangladesh

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

In May 1974 India successfully detonated its first atomic device. It had been developed in secret with the codename Smiling Buddha. India called it a peaceful nuclear explosion, though the experimental device was in effect a plutonium bomb. The test was seen as a triumph of India ...  Show more

A special edition on the Bangladesh War of Independence, which ended 50 years ago in December 1971. The conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people and redrew the political map of South Asia. The programme features first-hand accounts from leading activists and politicians ...

One year on from the horrific attack in Delhi, Joanna Jolly hears from three women who've chosen to report a rape in a country that is at last waking up to the problem. The authorities have introduced tougher laws since the young student was raped on a bus last December but is th ...  Show more

Senegal in West Africa recently introduced much tougher sentences for rape. Until 2019 it was deemed a misdemeanour rather than a serious crime and anyone convicted was often released after a few years, or even a few months. Myriam Francois meets rape survivors and both female an ...  Show more

Sexual violence in the Bangladeshi War of Independence. Laurie Taylor talks to Nayanika Mookherjee, Reader in Socio-Cultural Anthropology at Durham University, about the internationally unprecedented state designation of raped women as birangonas (brave women) in 1971. Her ground ...  Show more