PARUL Akhter was a happy, contented housewife until she became the victim of a savage acid attack by a spurned suitor. In a fit of fury, on a humid March evening in 1997, her brother-in-law hurled nitric acid at Parul's face as she sat in her verandah with her six-year-old son. The attack permanently damaged her right eye and ear and disfigured her pretty face forever. It also ruined her life.
Wearing dark sunglasses and wrapped in a sari from head to toe, the 23-year-old struggles to hide her ravaged face as she recounts her tragic tale. Abandoned by her in-laws, she came to the Women Support Centre, a government-run organisation in the Mirpur suburb of Dhaka, where she now lives with her son whose hand was also burnt in the attack.
"I still don't know what my fault was," she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. Her brother-in-law took advantage of the absence of her husband, a migrant worker in Malaysia, and made sexual overtures. A devout Muslim who considered sex outside marriage a sin, Parul refused. And two days later paid a heavy price for it.
She is not alone. It's the shared tragedy of nearly 100 women who are disfigured each year in a vengeful practice which is alarmingly on the rise despite the death penalty attached to it. "This is the most serious concern for Bangladeshi women," says Ayesha Khanam, secretary-general of the Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, a non-government women's rights body. According to the organisation, 600 incidents of acid-throwing have been reported in the last five years, 95 of them in 1997 alone.
A seminar on women's issues held in Kathmandu in March this year ranked Bangladesh first among the South Asian countries vis-avis the number of acid attack victims. "It's a looming social disaster and it must be tackled on an emergency basis," says Khanam. But, she laments, not enough is being done officially. Among the immediate measures she demands are a complete ban on the easy access to acid and establishing a primary crisis centre where victims of such attacks can receive instant physical treatment and moral support.
Women, especially from the lower strata, remain the most vulnerable segment in Bangladeshi society despite the fact that prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and Khaleda Zia, leader of the opposition, are both women. Several women's rights activists agreed with the contention that "they only pay lip service and have done virtually nothing to improve the situation".
The law prescribes severe punishment, from 10 years imprisonment to death sentence, depending on the gravity of the acid burn injury. "There's nothing wrong with the law, the problem lies in its implementation," says Shahnaz Huda, who teaches law at Dhaka University. Indeed, since the law was passed in 1983 and further amended in 1995, just two culprits have been sent to the gallows. "The process is so slow and cumbersome that you run out of patience in pursuing the case," snarls Habibunnesa, a lawyer at the Ain-o-Salish Kendra, an organisation dedicated to providing free legal assistance to victims of acid attack.
In the face of growing demands from women's rights groups, last month the government approved a bill seeking to make the law more effective by removing existing loopholes. In fact, home minister Rafiqul Islam says there are so many loopholes that it becomes virtually impossible to nail an attacker and most of them get away because of the weaknesses in the law. As has happened in the case of Parul's attacker, who was released six months ago on bail—it will be years before the legal process is completed and he's found guilty and convicted. Or he might escape punishment entirely since Parul is under pressure from her in-laws to withdraw the case since the attacker, after all, is a first cousin of her husband.
There are similar echoes in Amena Begum's story. The 20-year-old housewife, who hails from a poor family in the southwestern Magura district, will also see her attacker go scotfree shortly. Yet another victim of an acid attack, Amena was disfigured by her own husband, a farmer, only 20 days after they were married early last year. Her fault? She went to see her aunt without seeking permission from her in-laws.
Infuriated by this seemingly trivial oversight, her husband's elder brother beat up Amena mercilessly, forcing her to run away and seek shelter at her parents' home in the neighbouring village. After repeated attempts failed to bring her back, one evening Amena's enraged husband hurled acid, which he had apparently acquired beforehand, on his young wife's face.
A few days after Amena found her way to the Women Support Centre, her father came to the Centre to convince its director Umme Tanzia that the case against his son-in-law should be withdrawn. "He now wants to expiate his sin by taking Amena back," the victim's father told Tanzia. "We're poor and what are we going to gain by pursuing
the case?" the helpless and despondent father asked. "Isn't it better for my daughter to go back to her husband?" As for the husband, he fled to India immediately after the heinous attack. And then sent feelers saying he'd take Amena back if the case was withdrawn. Amena herself is ambivalent. "I don't know what will happen," she says. She will ultimately succumb to family pressure, feels Tanzia.
Other victims, however, are determined to see their attackers punished. Among them are Latufunnessa, 19, and Nurunnahar, 20, whose spurned suitors decided to give them the acid treatment after they refused to marry them. "We've nothing to lose any more and we want to see them punished so that other girls are saved from their wrath," they say. Lawyer Habibunessa has been pursuing their case seriously and hopes the attackers will "be finally convicted".
Women's rights activists and lawyers feel that the severe punishment prescribed by law is not a powerful enough deterrent against the attackers. "We feel that the legal process should be made speedier. If necessary there should also be a public execution of the attacker by a firing squad," says Khanam. At the same time there are growing demands that the government do something to severely restrict the attackers' access to acid and enact new laws providing for a complete ban and exemplary punishment for violators. For despite restrictions on selling acid, photo-labs and car-battery sellers have become the common sources of acid supplies.
Until stricter measures are enforced, the Paruls and Amenas will continue to face a bleak, condemned future. Several NGOs have stepped in to aid these victims, offering them emotional and material support. Naripokkho is one such women's rights group that is involved in the proper rehabilitation of these victims. "We're trying to establish a network of survivors by bringing them together so that they can draw inspiration and sustenance from each other," says Nasreen Haq, a member.
Besides arranging for skilled training for the victims, Naripokkho also tries to provide medical treatment. One such beneficiary is Bina Akhter, a 19-year-old girl who was badly ravaged in an acid attack two years ago. She has had seven operations so far to reconstruct the disfigured left side of her face; she has permanently lost the sight in her left eye. But the prohibitive cost of treatment, especially of plastic surgery, is slowing down her progress. "If we could have arranged money for their proper treatment," says Tanzia, "they could have hoped for a reasonably better life." But it's not only the physical scars that maim them, also emotional ones.
