MADE BY – GIREESHA SHARMA

ACID ATTACKS IN INDIA

1. Why acid attacks are common in India?2. Reasons behind acid attacks?3. How to prevent these attacks?4. How the victims are treated by society after

attacks?5. What can be done to change the perspective

of people in India?6. A survivor’s story .

CONTENTS

Acid attacks in India are instances of barbarism when one or more individuals douse a woman's face with acid with an aim to disfigure it.

 They are common because of the Misogynist culture impregnated into the psyche of males. "How could a girl challenge the norms?" "How could she not to be submissive?"- Abuse (Verbal/Physical/Mental) treated as the order of the day. We all turn blind-eye until it happens to us- Trying to take out frustration over the weaker sex. - Sisterhood togetherness - this largely depends on societal conditioning - Law and order situation is definitely a factor to consider( I used to walk free at 1 AM on empty roads in Mumbai almost everyday!)  The perpetrators are usually are let free in light of the legal complications and power struggles. At best, the perpetrator will spend some years in jail but not under rigorous imprisonment.

Personal conflicts in intimate relations and sexual rejection

Why acid attacks are common in India?

Acid attacks often occur as revenge against a woman who rejects a proposal of marriage or a sexual advance. Such attacks are common in societies where there is a high level of gender inequality and women occupy a subordinate position in relation to men.

Another cause of acid attacks are conflicts related to dowry.

Conflicts over land and property.Gang violence and rivalry.Acid attacks related to conflicts between criminal gangs occur

in many places, ranging from the United Kingdom to India.Socially, politically and religiously motivatedAttacks against individuals due to their social or political

activities, or due to their religious beliefs also occur. These attacks may be targeted against a specific individual, due to their activities, or may be perpetrated against random persons merely because they are part of a social group or community. In Pakistan, female students have had acid thrown in their faces as a punishment for attending school. Acid attacks due to religious conflicts have been reported in Tanzania.

Acid attacks in India, like Bangladesh, have a gendered aspect to them: analyses of news reports revealed at least 72% of reported attacks involved women. However, unlike Bangladesh, India's incidence rate of chemical assault has been increasing in the past decade, with a high 27 reported cases in 2010. Altogether, from January 2002 to October 2010, 153 cases of acid assault were reported in Indian print media while 174 judicial cases were reported for the year of 2000. However, scholars think that this is an underestimation, given that not all attacks are reported in the news, nor do all victims report the crime to officials.

Motivation for acid attacks in India mirrors those in Bangladesh: 34% of the analyzed print media in India cited rejection of marriage or refusal by women of sexual advances as the cause of the attack and dowry disagreements have been shown to spur acid attacks. Land, property, and/or business disputes accounted for 20% of acid assaults in India from 2002 to 2010. Illustrative cases of acid attack include Sonali Mukherjee's case of 2003 in Jharkhand for protesting sexual harassment, and Muhammad Razaq's case in Jammu & Kashmir in 2014 for an acid attack on his wife for not bringing enough dowry.[50]

 REASONS BEHIND IT –Acid attacks often happen because of a feeling of entitlement.

We all know entitlement. We've seen its bitter head rise in our social atmosphere. Entitlement is when a guy tells his friends that a woman is a slut because she wouldn't go out with him. Well, acid attacks are just a brutal, physical and psychopathic manifestation of that. 

It is an extension of the idea that "If I can't have her, then no one can have her." The perpetrator is delusional enough to think that she is rebuffing his advances because she is arrogant. And he seeks to destroy what he thinks is the source of her arrogance. Her looks. This is what happens when misogyny mixes with criminal insanity. 

Acid attacks have their base in a deep underlying culture of misogyny. And they are often preceded by instances of voyeurism, other forms of violence or repeated instances of sexual harassment. 

PREVENTION - Emotions are momentary. They wreak havoc and pass by. The resulting devastations and wounds are difficult to heal. Society needs higher awareness. These victims do not need any sympathy from anyone. They just need a helping hand to feel oneness with society. Nobody is a victim if they choose not to be one. Nobody is below anyone. There is none higher or lower in this world. When an act of aggression takes place, and when it creates inconvenience to society, a laser sharp judiciary system should ensure prompt justice. A corresponding support system should ensure rehabilitation. The rest will be managed by itself.

Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been formed in the areas with the highest occurrence of acid attacks to combat such attacks. Bangladesh has its Acid Survivors Foundation, which offers acid victims legal, medical, counseling, and monetary assistance in rebuilding their lives. Similar institutions exist in Uganda, which has its own Acid Survivors Foundation, and in Cambodia which uses the help of Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity. NGOs provide rehabilitation services for survivors while acting as advocates for social reform, hoping to increase support and awareness for acid assault.

The Acid Survivors Foundation India operates from different centres with national headquarters at Kolkata and chapters at Delhi and Mumbai.

Acid Survivors Trust International  (UK registered charity no. 1079290) provides specialist support to its sister organizations in Africa and Asia,

is the only international organization whose sole purpose is to end acid violence. The organization was founded in 2002 and now works with a network of six Acid Survivors Foundations in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Uganda that it has helped to form. Acid Survivors Trust International has helped to provide medical expertise and training to partners, raised valuable funds to support survivors of acid attacks and helped change laws. A key role for ASTI is to raise awareness of acid violence to an international audience so that increased pressure can be applied to governments to introduce stricter controls on the sale and purchase of acid.

Indian acid attack survivor Shirin Juwaley founded the Palash Foundation to help other survivors with psycho-social rehabilitation. She also spearheads research into social norms of beauty and speaks publicly as an advocate for the empowerment of all victims of disfigurement and discrimination. In 2011, the principal of an Indian college refused to have Juwaley speak at her school for fear that Juwaley's story of being attacked by her husband would make students "become scared of marriage".

Legislation in IndiaIndia's top court has ruled that authorities must

regulate the sale of acid. The Supreme Court's ruling on July 16, 2013 comes after an incident in which four sisters suffered severe burns after being attacked with acid by two men on a motorbike. Acid which is designed to clean rusted tools is often used in the attacks can be bought across the counter. But the judges said the buyer of such acids should in future have to provide a photo identity card to any retailer when they make a purchase. The retailers must register the name and address of the buyer. In 2013, section 326 A of Indian Penal Code was enacted by the Indian Parliament to ensure enhanced punishment for acid throwing.

The victim is in a living hell. I cannot imagine the sheer amount of pain they go through. Their face/body is disfigured, they are in constant pain, some go blind or deaf, some are unable to breathe or eat normally because of the damage to the face. In addition to all this, they are shunned from the society. Friends and relatives stop supporting/talking to their families. Their parents have to see their child in constant pain. The medical expenses are very high and most of the times, as these incidents happen in rural India, the families cannot afford the treatment. I just cannot imagine how difficult it is to go on living after this. I know my courage would fail me. 

It is painful, depressing and horrifying to know that there are people living in the world that are unfit to be called humans because they choose to do something like this to another person.

How the victims are treated by society after attacks?

However there is a much larger, more implicit undertone to it all. Acid attacks are reasonably scary. The women who are subjected to it are not only embroiled in an intense physical toil buy also a psychological one when she has to deal with the aftermath of the trauma. However this also affects other women. Women who are not connected to this at all. Women who hear about this on the news. 

For a meaningful contribution to society what any individual needs is a basic level of social security, and trust. A trust that she can walk the streets and get home from work without an angry co-workers chucking vitriol at her face. When she exerts her rights and does not return unwanted attention, she trusts that she has the right to feel safe after that. 

Once that faith and that trust is eliminated, women are on their own. This causes understandable hysteria and a serious lack of security in women, transgender and any other people who are vulnerable. How can an individual live their life and rise to their highest potential when they're constantly worried about their safety?

Anger is clearly a weakness. Anger hurts oneself and others. And those who are angry must be considered as ill. Treat them with the balm of love. Help them to understand their weaknesses. When the momentary rage wanes off, most of them regret, and often live in regret their whole life. Rage should be countered by awareness. Rage happens out of emotions, non-understanding of higher truth and often unfulfilled expectations. It is important to bring society to the operational level of clean awareness, which comes out of intellect and beyond. When rage happens, intellect is shut down. Regrets essentially take place.

The government needs to make new and strict rules against any such crime and Given that most of the guilty in these kind of cases are caught, strict punishments for them will be a step forward in elimination this inhumane crime.

How to stop acid attack?

Education system of India should be modified and it should includes one subject with regards to violence against women in India it include various crime done against women , their common reasons , preventions from them etc, so that our youth we will well informed about such things and our future developing society’s thinking can be a little different from the existing one. which will help our India to get shaped in the direction of which we want it.

Gender inequality starts from our very own houses , where all special treatments are given to boys of the family , this situation can be change, if we provide proper education facilities at every corner of India and if government starts new programs for the unemployed youth of India, because in my views some inequalities are created due to the lack of education and employment

Laxmi Agarwal is an Indian campaigner with Stop Acid Attacks and a TV host. She is an acid attack survivor and speaks for the rights of acid attack victims. She was attacked in 2005 at age 16, by a 32-year-old man whose advances she had rejected. Her story, among others, was told in a series on acid attack victims by Hindustan Times. She has also advocated against acid attacks through gathering 27,000 signatures for a petition to curb acid sales, and taking that cause to the Indian Supreme Court. Her petition led the Supreme Court to order the central and state governments to regulate the sale of acid, and the Parliament to make prosecutions of acid attacks easier to pursue.[1]

She is the director of Chhanv Foundation, a NGO dedicated to help the survivors of acid attacks in India. Laxmi received a 2014 International Women of Courage award by US First Lady Michelle Obama.  She was also chosen as the NDTV Indian of the Year.

Laxmi Agarwal Acid attacks survivor..

Laxmi was born in New Delhi in a middle-class family. Laxmi was acid attacked when she was in her seventh standards, in the age of 15 years.

Laxmi stated her career as a campaigner with Stop Acid Attacks campaign. She worked as a campaign coordinator in initial days. Soon, Laxmi became a voice of the survivors of Acid Attacks across world. She received multiple awards in India for her work to curb the sale of acid and to rehabilitate the survivors of acid attacks through her foundation.

As of June 2014 Laxmi hosts a television show, Udaan, on New Express.

Laxmi with her husband alok dixit.

Laxmi, whose face and other body parts were disfigured in the acid attack, had a PIL in 2006. A minor then, Laxmi was attacked with acid by three men near Tughlaq road in New Delhi as she had refused to marry one of them. Her PIL sought framing of a new law, or amendment to the existing criminal laws like IPC, Indian Evidence Act and CrPC for dealing with the offence, besides asking for compensation. She had also pleaded for a total ban on sale of acid, citing increasing number of incidents of such attacks on women across the country.

During a hearing in April, the Centre had assured the Supreme Court of India that it will work with the state governments to formulate a plan before the next hearing on July 9. However, it failed to do so, which angered the court. However, when the Centre failed to produce a plane, the Supreme Court warned that it will intervene and pass orders if the government failed to frame a policy to curb the sale of acid in order to prevent chemical attacks. "Seriousness is not seen on the part of government in handling the issue," the bench headed by Justice RM Lodha had said. Earlier, in February, the court had directed the Centre to convene in six weeks a meeting of Chief Secretaries of all states and Union Territories to hold discussion for enacting a law to regulate the sale of acids and a policy for treatment, compensation and care and rehabilitation of such victims.

Public interest litigation (PIL) in Supreme Court

Laxmi receives the International Woman of Courage Award from  US First lady Michelle Obama.

Meanwhile in 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Laxmi and Rupa’s plea, thereby creating a fresh set of restrictions on the sale of acid. Under the new regulations, acid could not be sold to any individual below the age of 18 years. One is also required to furnish a photo identity card before buying acid. Laxmi claims that not much has changed on the ground, despite all the regulations. "Acid is freely available in shops. Our own volunteers have gone and purchased acid easily. In fact, I have myself purchased acid," she said. "We have launched a new initiative called ‘Shoot Acid’. By means of the Right to Information Act, we are trying to acquire data concerning the sale of acid in every district. We intend to present the information collected through this initiative before the Supreme Court to apprise them of the situation .

As of January 2014 she is in love with social activist Alok Dixit. Both decided not to get married and instead be in a live-in relationship. "We have decided to live together until we die. But we are challenging the society by not getting married. We don’t want people to come to our wedding and comment on my looks. The looks of a bride are most important for people. So we decided not to have any ceremony," said Laxmi.[10] Their families have accepted the relationship and also their decision not to have a ceremonial wedlock.n on the ground.

An NGO started by Laxmi

One should always keep in mind that at the time of our death, who will care to consider how many parties and pompous dinners we attended, which involved the massacre of hundreds of animals for our sensory pleasures? We are often living a life of utter insensitiveness and abandon. We are taking our own life and all that it has offered to us for granted. What are we giving back to Mother Earth? It is time to consider. Especially now, when time has become faster. Time has become more precious. We are racing against time. Can you look at those who suffer? Are you able to see these boys and girls who have suffered because of the emotions of another human being? This is a wake-up call. Wake up before pain hits you. Wake up before insensitiveness and tamas lure the society like cancer. We should get up and ACT. ACT NOW. Never be disconnected, hide inside your comfort zones and believe that everything is all right. A life of inertia always meets up with compelling tragedies, beware.