Bangladesh is confronting a deepening child safety crisis, with a new report revealing that nine out of ten perpetrators of child abuse are known to their victims — neighbours, relatives, teachers, or close acquaintances — dismantling the widely held assumption of ‘stranger danger’. The findings have gained urgent attention following two particularly brutal incidents in recent weeks.

Two Cases That Shook the Nation

On 19 May, the decapitated body of an eight-year-old girl was discovered at a neighbour’s home in Dhaka’s Pallabi area, in what investigators described as a rape and murder. Separately, in Netrokona district, an 11-year-old girl was reportedly subjected to a brutal sexual assault that left her seven months pregnant. These cases, though extreme, are consistent with a documented pattern that child rights advocates say has been building for years.

What the Data Shows

A March 2025 report by child rights organisation Shishurai Shob, compiled through an audit of published news reports, found that immediate neighbours accounted for 40.58 per cent of recorded rape cases — 125 out of 308 incidents. Acquaintances followed at 21.43 per cent, teachers or religious instructors at 14.61 per cent, and close relatives at 13.64 per cent. Strangers, by contrast, were responsible for just 9.74 per cent of reported cases.

The data also revealed that 66.12 per cent of 124 child murders and 59.09 per cent of 308 sexual abuse cases took place within the home or family environment — underscoring that the domestic space, rather than the street, is the primary site of risk.

Children Killed to Destroy Evidence

Shishurai Shob further reported that nearly 10 per cent of child rape cases in 2025 involved the victim being killed in an effort to eliminate evidence. Between January and April this year alone, Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), a Dhaka-based legal rights organisation, recorded 11 cases of children killed after being raped.

Sumaiya Iqbal, assistant professor of criminology at Dhaka University, described the phenomenon as ‘witness elimination.’ “They try to hide the evidence, and in doing so, many victims are killed because they are the primary witness, and the evidence has to be erased,” she said.

The Age Profile of Victims

ASK’s four-month report covering January to April 2025 found that 56 out of 81 rape victims of known age — nearly 70 per cent — were children aged between 0 and 12. During the same period, 63 of the 115 children killed fell within the same age bracket, pointing to a disproportionate vulnerability among the youngest children.

Experts Cite Impunity and Social Norms

Laila Khondkar, convener of Shishurai Shob, called for deeper research into the psychology of perpetrators. “Global and local experience shows children are mostly abused by known figures — family, teachers, coaches, or neighbours — who exploit easy access when children are unsupervised. We urgently need research to understand the psychology of predators and unpack the rising societal brutality behind these crimes. In Bangladesh, that analysis is still missing,” she said.

Iqbal connected the pattern to systemic failures in deterrence. “If punishment is not consistent and certain, deterrence fails. Alongside impunity, there are deeper social issues — how society views women and children and how sexual objectification becomes normalised. These create an environment where violence can persist,” she added. With structural reforms in child protection still lacking, experts warn the situation is unlikely to improve without urgent policy intervention.