ISSN : 1997-1052 (Print)
2227-202X (Online)
 
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Acid Violence Against Women: Is the State Doing Enough?
Ferdous Jahan
Abstract

Violence against women is a global phenomenon from time immemorial, which does not depend on the level of development or even on the level of affluence of the society, but varies in terms of severity and manifestations. Violence against women manifests itself in a number of ways, including rape, sexual harassment, torture, violence against women in custody, acid burning, dowry deaths, domestic violence etc. According to the Amnesty International “violence against women is rooted in a global culture of discrimination which denies women equal rights with men and which legitimizes the appropriation of women's bodies for individual gratification or political ends. Every year, violence in the home and the community devastates the lives of millions of women” (International 2001). Thus, violence against women remains as an important obstacle towards women’s empowerment. All sorts of violence against women are gross violations of human rights and have gained importance through constant lobbying of academics and activists worldwide. However, throwing acids to women in Bangladesh has proliferated over the years and has become a real concern. Defacing a women or disfiguring any of her organ by throwing or pouring acid is indeed a dreadful crime. A victim has to bear the pains and trauma of the attack as well as the disfigured organs until she dies. The rest of her life is always arrested by horror of the heinous crime. An acid violence disempower a woman for ever. On the other hand, in a democratic country of the twenty-first century world, citizens expect ‘equality’ and ‘justice’ to be ensured by the state. Citizens go to a court if they experience injustice or feel deprived of equal rights. In fact, in most countries there has been a growing trend of treating the judiciary as the supreme authority to decide what should be done when it comes to protecting human rights and serving citizens in a democratic welfare state. Within this judiciary-oriented environment, Bangladesh has enacted tough laws to combat acid violence against women. But, despite tough laws, in many jurisdictions, most acid violence cases remain unresolved or often criminal justice system produces unwanted consequences. In this situation, one of our central arguments is that to combat crime against women, the state’s role should not end at enacting tough laws. A government may look better and citizen-friendly by enacting such laws and such laws may help them gain popular votes, but victims of crime are rarely benefited if the state does not follow an integrated welfare oriented approach to make sure that these victims in fact do not only get justice, but also their lives are restored in a pre-crime state. Within this context, in this article we intend to intensively observe one district court in Bangladesh and analyze the acid violence cases that this specific court dealt with after the enactment of the Violence against Women and Children Act, 2000 and the Acid Crime Control Act, 2002. At the outset, we would like to claim that without developing the lives of women, and without securing their rights and social security, only promulgation of stringent laws will not bring any meaningful and fruitful development for the country. In this article, we will first discuss how, in general, a predominant and exclusive judiciary role, with the objective of ‘equality’ and ‘justice’ for all citizens, may bring negative results for many at the cost of privileging some. Then we will provide an overview and statistics on violence against women in Bangladesh in general and acid violence in particular. The next section will discuss the existing legal provisions to combat acid violence. We will then present our intensive analysis on Narail District court’s dealing with acid violence cases. We will present quantitative data as well as several cases studies. By analyzing the Narail court data, we will find that the tough law to control acid violence has remained mostly ineffective in Bangladesh.

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