Thousands of young women around the world who have survived acid attacks are forced to live with physical, psychological and social scars. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Apr 15 2015 (IPS)

Vinita Panikker, 26, considers herself “the world’s most unfortunate woman”.

Three years ago, a jealous husband, who suspected her of having an affair with her boss at a software company, poured a whole bottle of hydrochloric acid on her face while she was asleep. The fiery liquid seared her flesh, blighting her face almost entirely while blinding her in one eye.

"It is far less tangible but the discrimination – from friends, relatives and neighbours – hurts the most." -- Shirin Juwaley, an acid attack survivor and founder of the Palash Foundation
What remains today of a once pretty visage is a disfigured and taut stretch of burnt skin with nose, lips, and eyelids flattened out almost completely. Despite spending 10,000 dollars on 12 reconstructive surgeries and two eye operations, the acid attack survivor is still partially blind.

From earning a five-figure salary as a software professional, Panikker today ekes out a living as a cook at a local non-profit. “My life has taken a 180-degree turn,” she tells IPS. “From a successful career woman, I’m now a social reject with neither resources nor family to call my own.”

Acid attacks in India have ravaged the lives of thousands of young women whose only fault was that they repudiated marriage proposals, rejected sexual advances from men they didn’t fancy, or were caught in the crossfire of domestic disputes.

In India’s patriarchal society, men who take umbrage at being spurned turn to acid as a retributive weapon.

“Acid attacks severely damage and burn skin tissue, often exposing and even dissolving the bones,” explains Rohit Bhargava, senior consultant dermatologist with Max Hospital in Noida, a suburban district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where 185 out of 309 acid attacks reported in 2014 took place.

“Long-term consequences include blindness, permanent scarring of the face and body, disability and lifelong physical disfigurement,” the doctor tells IPS.

But some survivors, whose appearance changes overnight, say the psychological scars are the ones that take longest to heal. There are social ramifications too, as the attacks usually leave victims disabled in some way, thereby increasing their dependence on family members for even the most basic daily activities.

Shirin Juwaley, an acid attack survivor who launched the Palash Foundation to address social reintegration and livelihood alternatives for people with disfigurement, says social exclusion is far more painful than any physical injury inflicted on an acid attack victim. “It is far less tangible but the discrimination – from friends, relatives and neighbours – hurts the most,” she tells IPS.

In 1998, Juwaley’s husband doused her with acid after she sought a divorce. Despite several police complaints, he still roams free, while Juwaley has had to painfully piece her life back together again.

Today she has a busy schedule, and travels the world addressing conferences and symposia on the social, financial and psychological impact of acid burns. Her organisation also studies the social exclusion of people who live with altered bodies.

Slow progress on legal deterrents

The Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTI), a London-based charity, tentatively estimates that some 1,000 acid attacks occur every year in India. However, in the absence of official statistics, campaigners put the true figure even higher: at roughly 400 every month.

“The fear of reprisals inhibits many women from coming forward to report their ordeal,” explains Ashish Shukla, a coordinator at Stop Acid Attacks, a Delhi-based non-profit that has rehabilitated and empowered over 100 acid attack victims since its inception in 2013.

“In India, acid attacks are even worse than rape as the victims, who are usually female, are subjected to humiliation on a daily basis. Most of the women are shunned and ostracised […],” explains Shukla.

The activist adds that public and government apathy results in a double victimisation of the survivors. “They are forced to repeatedly appear in court, recount their trauma, and [visit] doctors even as they grapple with their personal tragedy of physical disfigurement, loss of employment and social discrimination,” elaborates the activist.

As per the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013, a person convicted of carrying out an acid attack in India can be sentenced to anything from 10 years to life imprisonment.

The Supreme Court ruled on Jul. 16, 2013, that all states regulate the sale of easily available substances like hydrochloric, sulfuric, or nitric acids – common choices among perpetrators – adding that buyers must provide a photo identity card to any retailer, who in turn should record each customer’s name and address.

However, most retailers IPS spoke to demonstrated complete ignorance of the law. “This is the first time I’m hearing about this ruling,” Suresh Gupta, owner of Gupta Stores, a small, family-owned outfit in Noida, tells IPS.

Campaigners say that this horrific form of gender-based violence will not end until the government makes it much harder for offenders to procure their weapon of choice; currently, one-litre bottles of acid can be purchased over the counter without a prescription for as little as 33 cents.

The Supreme Court has condemned the Centre for failing to formulate a strong enough policy to curb acid sales. In early April, the Court directed private hospitals to treat acid attack survivors free of cost, and additionally ruled that states must take action against medical facilities that fail to comply with this directive.

Experts say India should take a leaf out of the books of neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh by firming up implementation of existing laws. In Bangladesh, acid assaults have plummeted from 492 cases in 2002 to 75 last year, according to ASTI, since the government introduced the death penalty for acid attacks.

Stiffer legislation in Pakistan has resulted in a 300-percent rise in the number of women coming forward to report the crime.

Progress in India has been slower, although the state governments of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have set a good precedent by funding the entire cost of medical treatment for some acid attack survivors.

Ritu Saa is one such example. The 20-year-old who had to give up her studies following an acid attack in 2012 by her cousin is today a financially independent woman. She works at the Cafe Sheroes’ Hangout, an initiative launched by the Stop Acid Attacks campaign in the city of Agra in Uttar Pradesh, which employs several survivors.

“The campaign and the government have really helped me a lot,” Saa tells IPS. “Today, I have a job, a decent salary, good food, accommodation and am standing on my own feet.”

While acid attacks have traditionally been perceived as a problem involving male perpetrators and female victims, advocates say that attacks on men are also surging, with a third of all cases reported each year involving males embroiled in property or financial disputes.

Rights activists and campaigners contend that until the government formulates and enforces a multi-pronged approach to ending this grisly practice, scores of people in this country of 1.2 billion remain at risk of suffering a fate that some say is worse than death.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Ruqqaiya Perween at the Burns Centre in Karachi, after an acid attack that left scars on 22 percent of her face and upper body. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 1 2013 (IPS)

Five months back, a scorched 26-year-old Ruqqaiya Perween was brought to the Civil Hospital’s Burns Centre in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi.

Scarred for life with burns on 22 percent of her face and upper body, the mother of four said her husband, Asghar Maulvi Bukhsh, flung acid on her while she was asleep with her children – and some even fell on them.

“This is what I looked like,” she said, pointing to a photo showing a smiling and healthy young woman. “I don’t think I will ever be the same. I pray to God to make me well enough to be able to take care of my children, otherwise I have no desire to live.”

“Since my marriage 12 years ago, I’ve never had a day’s peace,” she said, her voice thick with emotion, while a tear fell from her left eye, which is now blind. “Beating me up was a regular pastime of his,” she said. It was always because he needed the money she earned as domestic help, she added.

She said her husband had never worked since they got married. “He suspected I gave some of the money to my divorced mother, although what I earned was so meagre, I’d hardly be able to feed the children three square meals,” she said.

Despite stiffer sentences for offenders, ranging from 14 years to life imprisonment and a fine of one million rupees (10,000 dollars), since the Acid Crime Prevention Act was modified in 2011, campaigners say the number of women doused in acid has increased.

According to a report by the Aurat Foundation (AF), which works for the rights of women, the reported cases of violence against women went down overall by 12 percent in 2012. However, some forms of violence showed an increase. In particular, the staggering 89 percent rise in reported acid attacks, followed by domestic violence, which rose 62 percent, burning (33 percent) and murder (11 percent).

“It’s the easiest form of violence… you can get acid over the counter and there is a complete lack of fear of retribution,” Maliha Zia, manager of law and gender at AF, told IPS.

In the last couple of years, especially after a Pakistani film Saving Face won an Oscar in 2012, there has been increased conversation around this form of violence – which may actually have given some men the idea, Zia said.

While statistics are patchy as not all cases are reported and not all women make it to the hospital, the Islamabad-based Acid Survivors Foundation said that in the last seven months, over 65 cases had been reported from across Pakistan.

In 2012, the foundation, which provides legal and medical help, said it was able to collate reports of 111 acid attack cases. These are collected from the field, various NGOs, survivors and families, the police and government hospitals from around the country.

In addition, 70 percent of acid crime victims are women, and in 60 percent of cases the attacks occur during domestic disputes.

“Laws are there in Pakistan and they are very good,” Dabir-ur-Rehman, heading the Friends of Burns Centre, a patients’ welfare branch of the Burns Centre, told IPS. But he said that in the last 12 years, since the philanthropic venture began, he had “not seen a single person convicted or any [woman] getting justice.”

Valerie Khan of ASF, however, has seen the conviction rate tripling since 2012 after the amendments in the law. “But let’s face it,” she added. “From a six percent conviction rate for acid attacks we have reached 18 percent, which is an improvement. But it still means that more than 80 percent of the culprits are still escaping justice.”

What needs to be done, said Khan, is strengthening the law enforcement mechanism. The ASF believes that while the amendment in the law was a good first step, it was not enough. So the foundation is still campaigning for a more comprehensive acid and burn crime bill, which is yet to be passed.

“It includes, among other components, a monitoring mechanism to overview the enforcement of the laws related to acid and burn violence,” she said.

In addition, Zia said: “It is equally important for the media to not just report on the crime, but to follow it through and report on the convictions so that it can act as a deterrent for future criminal attempts.”

One reason for the low conviction rate, said Zohra Yusuf, chair of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, is that “investigation in most criminal cases, also in the cases of acid attacks, is extremely poor, so offenders are often acquitted.”

And victims are frequently silenced, she said.

Fakhra Younus, a survivor who made international news 13 years ago, never got justice, because her perpetrator, Bilal Khar, belonged to a powerful political family. Younus underwent more than three dozen surgeries before killing herself last year; Khar continues to enjoy virtual impunity.

“A lot of pressure is brought upon families to retract their complaints,” said Yusuf, adding that “In the case of Fakhra, the entire family backtracked and said they could not identify him in court.”

“Victims often fear reprisals from perpetrators,” Khan concurred. “In addition, they also find it difficult to access justice.”

But until a stricter law is put in place, Dr Shahid Hussain at Karachi’s Burns Centre offers a solution. “If the government would put a check on the sale of concentrated acid, it can go a long way in controlling these crimes,” he told IPS.

Every month, he said, he sees two to four women coming to the ward after they have been doused in acid.

Zia said, “There was a section in the amended bill which put a check on the buying and selling of acid, but it was scratched off, before its passage.”

Meanwhile, Perween’s husband, who is still at large, calls her up daily threatening to scorch her younger sister the same way, if she does not drop the charges against him.

“Come what may, I will not change what I said!” said a resolute Perween, refusing to back down.

Survivors of acid attacks face a host of medical and social problems. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Jun 28 2013 (IPS)

Women in Pakistan are no strangers to horror. In this country of 176 million, about 90 percent of women have experienced domestic violence; every year, over 1,000 women are murdered in so-called ‘honour killings’. Two years ago, the Thomson Reuters Foundation named Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world for women and girls.

Perhaps the most appalling of these many forms of violence against women are acid attacks, which have become increasingly frequent, particularly in the rural parts of the northern provinces.

The attacks themselves are brief, with the perpetrator needing nothing more than a bottle of hydrochloric acid and a few seconds to fling it on the face and body of his victim; but for the women who endure it, the effects last a lifetime.

Searing pain, lengthy and costly medical procedures, permanent disfiguration and intense social stigma are among the most obvious impacts. Less visible are the trauma and loneliness that follow this crime.

Just last week, an 18-year-old Pashto actress named Shazia Begum from the Pabbi village in Nowshera, one of 25 districts that comprise the country’s northern Khyper Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, sustained severe burns after being doused with acid by a suitor.

Shazia’s mother, Shamim Begum, told IPS that the attacker, a local film producer named Shaukat Khan, went into a rage when she rejected his offer of marriage. The next day, he scaled the wall of the family’s house and poured acid on the sleeping girl.

Shazia was rushed to the Lady Reading Hospital in KP’s capital, Peshawar, where she was anaesthetised before doctors set to work sterilising her wounds. Like many victims, she was dangerously dehydrated, and as medics daubed antibiotic cream on her burns, she was fed a steady stream of fluids through an IV.

Doctors in the hospital told IPS that most burn victims experience sufficient blood loss to warrant a transfusion. Though Shazia did not require this procedure, she will likely suffer from anaemia until her wounds are completely healed, they said.

After two days of intense treatment she was sent home with painkillers, vitamins, and warnings that constant and long-term medical attention would be a requisite for survival.

“We have received about 12 burn cases so far this year; eight of them had burns covering 50 percent of their bodies,” Dr. Abuzar Khan, a specialist at the hospital’s burn ward, told IPS.

In 2012, 27 acid attack victims were admitted here but only four survived. Most die as a result of septicaemia caused by severe infections.

The few that survive endure a veritable catalogue of medical problems: acid destroys the soft cartilage of noses and ears, causing deafness and loss of smell; lips dissolve, leaving teeth exposed and victims unable to speak or eat; eyelids are quickly and easily burned away, leading to blindness; even the skull is affected, particularly when the layers of dermis and fat burn away, leaving bones exposed.

These effects do not only induce extreme, sometimes unbearable, pain, they also wipe out a woman’s chance of finding a husband, starting a family, or leading a normal life.

Disfiguration, particularly in the face, neck and shoulders, is so intense that many victims end up as complete recluses, either hidden away by their families or too ashamed to step out in pubic.

Earlier this year, 22-year-old Razia Begum divorced her husband in order to marry another man. Furious, her husband followed her to her new home in the Charsadda district of KP and threw acid in her face.

She has since developed a burn scar contracture, a shortening of the muscles, tendons and tissues, for which she will now have to undergo reconstructive surgery.

“Nobody is willing to look at my face,” she told IPS. “It is disgusting and shameful. Death would be far better that what I am facing now.”

Few survivors can afford reconstructive surgery, which is made more expensive by a shortage of plastic surgeons in the region: according to Abuzar Khan, only 20 qualified plastic surgeons serve a population of 2.5 million people.

A basic skin grafting procedure for a small area of the face costs 500 dollars, though the chances of subsequent infections are very high.

Most of the men who experience acid burns – about 20 percent of all burn victims – sustain such injuries while working in factories that produce matches, he said, while almost all the women are victims of attacks by suitors or family members.

A strict patriarchal culture governs all social interactions in this part of Pakistan, with both men and women forced to conform to rigid gender roles. Shame occupies a large part of the public imagination, including among men who are unable to find wives.

This perhaps explains why most perpetrators are men whose marriage proposals have been rejected, said Noor Alam Khan, chairman of Voice of Prisoners, an NGO providing free legal services to acid survivors and juvenile prisoners.

“Men want to deface those women who turned them down, and deprive them of their natural beauty so no one else will look at them… or marry them,” Khan told IPS.

Valerie Khan, chairperson of the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF), told IPS that her organisation recorded about 150 attacks in Pakistan last year, of which only 49 were reported to the police.

A long history of indifference to domestic and gender-based violence dissuades a majority of victims from lodging complaints with the police, and allows innumerable perpetrators to get off scot-free.

Now, experts say, new laws and increased awareness about the situation could act as a powerful deterrent to such crimes.

In 2011 the government passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, tweaking section 332 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) to make acid throwing a crime punishable by anything from 14 years to life imprisonment.

Police officer Muhammad Javid told IPS that in addition to the minimum 14-year sentence, attackers would be slapped with a million-dollar fine.

Noor Alam Khan believes that strict implementation of the law, which effectively makes acid throwing a non-bailable offense, would send a strong signal to perpetrators that Pakistani society no longer tolerates such actions.

But although “the conviction rate rose to 18 percent in 2012, from six percent in 2011 as a result of the law,” according to Valerie Khan, a concerted effort must be made to prevent high acquittal rates.

Others say the government should regulate the availability of acid, currently available in general stores for about two dollars per litre.

A draft law that would have banned over-the-counter sales of substances like hydrochloric acid lingered in Parliament but eventually failed to go through due to arguments that the product was crucial for everyday items like toiletries and batteries, and for mechanics and goldsmiths.

But until strong measures are put in place, Pakistani women will live with the perpetual fear of meeting a similar fate as hundreds of their countrywomen.

Nobody will ever know if Jhon Jairo Echenique decided to take his own life out of remorse, fear or mental illness. But the suicide followed his arrest for the stabbing and burning with acid of his 19-year-old former girlfriend Angélica Gutiérrez.

A law student, Gutiérrez was attacked at home. Neighbours took her to hospital where she died. Echenique, the prime suspect, was arrested in the Caribbean city of Cartagena de Indias in northern Colombia. Hours later, he used his shirt to hang himself in his cell.

Legislator Gloria Stella Díaz. Credit: Helda Martinez/IPS

The tragedy unfolded over the Jun. 30 – Jul. 1 weekend in Cartagena, a city of one million people where, so far this year, five women have been murdered and 213 injured in attacks, leading to the arrest of 196 men, according to police statistics.

Figures from the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) say that on average, 245 women suffer some form of violence every day making gender violence the most widespread form of human rights abuses.

One form of violence that is becoming increasingly common in this country is the throwing of acid or other corrosive substances on a woman’s face or other parts of her body, often leaving the victim so horribly disfigured that she has no hope ever of living a normal life.

“Perpetrators, often with malicious intent and cruelty, seek to leave a mark on their victims as a constant reminder of the reason why they were attacked – generally an incident prompted by jealousy, a separation, or similar conflicts that could have been solved peacefully,” legislator Gloria Stella Díaz tells IPS.

Díaz, who belongs to the Christian party, Movimiento Independiente de Renovación (Independent Movement for Complete Renovation or MIRA), has introduced a bill in parliament aimed at protecting citizens against acid attacks.

Acid attacks are not limited to domestic violence. In a recent case in Bogota, the victim, a teenage boy, suffered second- and third-degree burns in an attack classified as urban violence involving homeless persons.

Another recent case in Bogota was that of a woman attacking another whom she suspected of having an affair with her husband. The perpetrator was sentenced to nine years in prison.

“One (attack) was committed purely out of cruelty, and the other because the victim refused the aggressor money,” Díaz commented during an IPS interview.

“Victims of such attacks have now decided to speak out and are backing the bill with their signatures; they’re even willing to attend the parliament session to lend their support under the slogan ‘No More Silence; Punishment for the Perpetrators’,” Díaz said.

The initiative is part of a campaign called ‘Faces With No Traces of Impunity’  aimed  at changing  existing laws that treat acid attacks as personal injury offences meriting a nine-year sentence that can be reduced for good behaviour.

“With this bill we propose to change how this very serious crime is defined, classifying it as a separate offence that would allow harsher penalties and longer sentences,” Díaz said.

The bill proposes a minimum of 12 years in prison, for the act of throwing acid. But, if the target of the attack is a woman, a minor or a public figure whose livelihood depends on his or her image, the attacker could receive a sentence of up to 20 years.

“Another aim of the proposed law is for the state to implement a system of integral assistance services, including legal and psychological counselling, job placement and anti-discrimination campaigns. The state would cover the cost of reconstructive and plastic surgeries,” Diaz said.

In an effort to prevent such crimes from going unreported, the bill seeks to make it mandatory for hospitals or medical facilities, both public and private, to report all attacks to the police so that a criminal investigation can be initiated.

If the bill is passed into law, the sale of corrosive substances would also be controlled. This would mean that “when a crime (involving such substances) is reported in any city, it will be possible to establish who and where they were purchased, thus helping identify the perpetrators.”

The situation in Colombia is not as serious as in countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan, that led filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy to produce ‘Saving Face,’ a short documentary on the plight of two Pakistani women who were victims of acid attacks.

Diaz said she would like to see Obaid-Chinoy’s film which claimed an Oscar at this year’s awards. “It’s a very real tragedy,” she said, stressing that the situation needs to be addressed by all sections of society.

The bill, which has been approved in an initial session, must undergo three more before it can become law. Diaz is optimistic that it will be passed during the next legislative session that begins on Jul. 20.

“There’s political will and support from many sectors, including the attorney general’s office which has already appointed a prosecutor specialising in crimes of this type,” she said.

Media, she said, must also report acid attacks “with sensitivity, raising awareness for prevention and firmly supporting this initiative, so that aggressors will know that they will be punished. And it has to be done without sensationalism.”