Acid attack victims fight for justice

Survivors of acid attacks attend a rally in Dhaka yesterday

Gulf-Times
http://www.gulf-times.com

Tuesday12/5/2009

Khodeza Begum still shivers in fear when she remembers the winter night eight years ago when an unidentified attacker sprayed acid on her and her baby girl as they slept in their Bangladesh shantytown home.

“The corrosive liquid badly burned my face and part of my child’s head,” said 30-year-old Khodeza, her face partly covered to hide the scars.

“But I received no justice from police or court as I could not identify the offender,” she told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the Bangladesh Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) in Dhaka yesterday.

ASF officials, police and victims said acid attacks mostly result from refusal of a sexual advance, demand for dowry or family disputes over land. Most of the victims were young women, they said.

As well as horrific scarring and the inevitable psychological trauma, organisers of the conference said that many victims are denied justice like Khodeza. Others face social isolation and ostracism by families.

“Lucky I am that my husband did not abandon us, unlike the fate that befall on many acid victims,” said Khodeza, from Bangladesh’s southern Satkhira district.

Police sometimes take the side of the offenders for a bribe and protect them from law, Nur Jahan, another acid victim, told the conference, which was attended by about 600 acid victims from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Uganda and Nepal.

Samina Afzal Naz, an official of the Acid Survivors Foundation Pakistan, said acid attacks over spurned sexual advances or land disputes were also a problem in her country.

“We started working in Pakistan only two years ago and have already identified 149 acid victims in the Punjab region,” said Samina.

ASF officials said the number of acid attacks in Bangladesh had decreased since the government enacted tough laws that set death as the maximum penalty for acid throwers.

“When we founded ASF in Bangladesh in 1999, the number of acid victims annually recorded was around 500 in the country. The number has now gone down well below 100,” said John Morrison, the founder of the organisation.

Access to good medical care for victims remains a problem, however, ASF officials said.

Bangladesh, home to nearly 150mn people, has only one 50-bed burns unit in a public sector hospital, they said.

“It is only a drop in the ocean,” said Monira Rahman, the executive director of ASF Bangladesh, adding that the foundation is running a 20-bed hospital to supplement government facilities. Reuters