Stronger Laws to Deter Acid Attacks on Women

An acid survivor in Bangladesh is rebuilding her life with help from the Department for International Development (DFID). Credit: Narayan Nath/FCO/Department for International Development (DFID)/CC-BY-2.0Preeti Rathi was just 25 years old when she passed away in a Mumbai hospital exactly a month after a man threw acid on her while she stood waiting on a railway platform. Rathi had travelled from India’s capital, New Delhi, to work as a nurse at INHS Ashwini, the naval hospital in south Mumbai. Despite closed-circuit television footage of the railway platform on which the attack took place, and massive protests launched by her family and activists, her assailant still remains at large. Rathi’s is not an isolated case. The last few years have seen hundreds of Indian women and girls in cities across the country become the victims of acid attacks. Those who succumb to their injuries invariably die a painful death – acid eats into the skin, resulting in wounds that quickly become infected and cause septicaemia and other fatal conditions. Survivors, meanwhile, end up with scars that often last a lifetime, and many live out their days hiding what many described to IPS as their “deformed” faces and bodies from horrified gazes. Though there is a dearth of official data on the issue, reports conducted by independent researchers and rights groups show that acid attacks are a gendered crime, with young women being the primary targets. The attackers, more often than not, are men...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tags: Active Citizens Asia-Pacific Civil Society Crime & Justice Democracy Development & Aid Education Featured Gender Gender Violence Headlines Health Human Rights Poverty & MDGs Regional Categories TerraViva Europe Women's Heal Source Type: news