An acid attack is a form of violent assault involving the act of throwing acid onto the body of another “with the intention to disfigure, damaged, torture, or kill”. Perpetrators of these attacks throw corrosive liquids at their victims, usually on their faces, burning them, and damaging skin tissue, often exposing and sometimes dissolving the bones. Acid attacks can often lead to permanent blindness.
Acid attacks have traumatic consequences: physical, psychological, and social. Additionally, a disfigured girl or woman bears a physical stigma that makes her liable to public suspect and questions her moral integrity. Thus victims’ family honor and prestige also gets stained. Survivors experience a dramatic change in their lifestyle. Many stop their education and work during recovery due to the injury.
Rejection of love offers, refusal of indecent proposals, vengeance, family disputes, dowry, land disputes, political conflicts are some of the causes of acid throwing. There are some common factors in many cases. The girl is usually a teenager. The targets are primarily females between twelve and twenty five years of age, though recent trends have shown a change in the profile of the targets with older women, children and even men being attacked.
Why women are getting attacked by acid is a complicated question. As a matter of fact, women in Pakistan have a lower status in nearly all aspects of life. Socially, women become vulnerable to violence due to their subordinate positions in power relationships sustained between men and women by kinship structures, patriarchy, class, and ideology. Acid attacks on women are not a result of any single phenomenon. I believe acid attacks are outcomes of many social factors. There is a growing tendency towards acceptance of violence in the society mainly due to certain socio-political factors, such as poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, corruption and so forth.
The Acid Survivors Foundation Pakistan (ASFP) said that reported cases of acid throwing on women have dropped by around 50 per cent as compared to the past five years. According to ASFP, the drop is a major achievement for acid violence and discussing Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) in the country.
In 2016 and 2017, there were a total of 71 acid attack victims whereas in 2018 and 2019, 62 cases related to acid throwing were reported, besides 11 cases of fire burns and four of multiple burns.
To combat acid violence, government must end the widespread impunity perpetrators enjoy by effectively implementing laws that provide for perpetrators’ prosecution and punishment. There is a dire need to address its root causes: gender inequality and discrimination, the availability of acid, and the impunity of perpetrators.
In furtherance of their duty to exercise due diligence to prevent acid violence, governments should enact criminal laws that specifically address acid violence and effectively regulate the production, distribution, use, sale, and handling of acid.