The ordeal of a Bengali woman and her daughter, forced to live in the cold room of a supermarket

BarcelonaThe relationship began with an arranged marriage in Bangladesh. The couple lived together for a few years, as agreed by both families, and they had a daughter who is now eleven years old. In 2017, the man moved to Barcelona, looked for a way to make a living, and opened a 24-hour supermarket in the Zona Franca. Five years later, the woman and the girl, who was already seven years old, also traveled to the Catalan capital to meet him. That's where the ordeal that both of them have had to endure began, terrified by the man's assaults and having to sleep inside the cold room of the supermarket's back shop while he stayed in an apartment.

Now the man faces a prison sentence of 26 and a half years. The accusations focus on the period from May 7, 2022, when mother and daughter landed in Barcelona, until June 19, 2022, when the complaint was filed. A little over a month in which assaults and threats accumulated, as stated in the indictment: "I will kill you and throw your body into the sea, if the police ask I will say you have left," and "She is my daughter and I can do whatever I want," when the woman begged him to stop suffocating the girl.

The offensive treatment began from the moment he went to pick them up at the airport, when he snapped at the woman: "Why are you carrying so many suitcases, you pig's daughter?" On the same day that mother and daughter arrived, he told them they would have to live in the back shop, where he had placed some boxes inside the cold room that served as a bed. There was no full bathroom, only a toilet, and since they didn't have a shower, they had to wash with the same water from the toilet. As the prosecutor describes it, they lived "in degrading conditions of absolute unsanitary conditions" while the man stayed in an apartment. Furthermore, he did not allow them to turn on the light "to save money" and when he finished work and went home, he would close the shutter so they could not leave.

In addition to not being able to communicate in Catalan or Spanish, the mother and daughter had no other relatives in the country nor the resources to ask for help. They could not go to the hospital when he assaulted them, nor to the police station, and they lived "in an absolute climate of anguish, fear, and unease". According to legal sources who spoke to ARA, the woman managed to report the situation they were experiencing one day when her husband allowed her to leave the back shop for a while because she wouldn't stop crying. During this time when she was able to get some air in a park, she met two women, one of whom spoke Bengali like her and was able to alert her to what was happening to them inside that supermarket.

Years of intimidation

The man, represented by a private firm, is seeking acquittal. He is free on bail with a restraining order against the victims, which he has so far respected. The woman is represented by lawyer Carlos Covelo, who is seeking the same sentence as the Public Prosecutor: 26 and a half years in prison for mistreatment, insults, crimes against moral integrity, coercion, threats, and continued sexual assault on the woman. Every time he forced her to have sexual relations, he would say: "I am married to you, you can't stop me. I can do whatever I want to you."

The Barcelona Court of Appeal had scheduled the trial for this Thursday after many difficulties in locating the two witnesses from the park. Today, both were waiting to testify at the trial, but it has finally been suspended and without a new date. The reason was one of the preliminary issues raised by the defense. According to the accused's lawyer, there is a part of the facts for which the man is accused that is not included in the indictment and which also occurred before the mother and daughter arrived in the country, and therefore she considers that they should be withdrawn from the charges.

She specifically refers to a part of the indictment which states that from the beginning of the relationship, the man completely controlled the woman, creating a "prolonged climate of intimidation and contempt towards her, behaving in an authoritarian and violent manner and always acting in a context of contempt for her status as a woman," treating her as an object and demanding her permission to visit family or use money. Both the prosecutor and the private prosecution had included these facts in their submissions, and the court has suspended the trial to deliberate whether they can be maintained or not. Once they have decided, they will look for a new date to try the case.