WUNRN
PAKISTAN - WOMEN ADVOCATE FOR LAW AGAINST ACID ATTACKS
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, May 31, 2010 (IPS) - Almost seven years
after Naila Farhat, 20, became another victim of an acid throwing attack by a
spurned suitor, she is finally seeing more vigorous efforts toward the passage
of a law seeking to amend existing legislation to reinforce protection of women
against violent assaults.
Farhat is the first to admit, though, that beneath her
physical scars is a smoldering anger that refuses to be pacified until she has
exacted vengeance against her violators.
"I want him to be doused in acid so he can feel not
just the searing pain but live with disfigurement day after day, for the rest
of his life," she said of her main assailant over telephone from Layyah, a
town in the southern part of Punjab province.
Yasmeen Rehman, advisor to the prime minister on women’s
development and a legislator, told IPS that the Ministry of Women Development
(MoWD) was doing further research on a draft law against acid attacks.
"It is seeking help from the Acid Survivors Foundation
(ASF) and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, she said.
The ASF, in turn, is getting assistance from its parent
organisation in Britain and Cornell Law School in the United States, said Sana
Masood, a lawyer working with the Foundation, which provides medical,
psychosocial, socioeconomic and legal aid to acid survivors. "We are
currently involved in extensive research to help the MoWD in coming up with
another bill," she revealed
"Realistically speaking, I should say we will be able
to present it in the (legislative) assembly by July," said Rehman
In November 2009, six years after Farhat filed a case
against her perpetrators – a tailor and her elementary science teacher, who
acted as an accomplice – Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary
urged the government to pass a new law that would restrict the sale of
industrial strength acid and increase the punishment for acid attacks.
This came with his landmark verdict upholding the original
lower court ruling sentencing Farhat’s violators to 12 years in prison and
ordering them to pay 1.25 million rupees (about 14,775 dollars) in damages.
Chaudhary also announced that the government would shoulder
the cost of her healthcare and educational needs.
Farhat said she decided to bring her case to the Supreme
Court late last year after the lower courts released one of her assailants, her
former teacher, and lowered the prime perpetrator’s sentence to four years and
his fine to 110,000 rupees (1,300 dollars).
"The teacher bribed the judge and got himself released
the very same day," she said.
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, three women
parliamentarians filed a "hurriedly drafted" bill, as Masood
described it, seeking to amend existing laws on violence against women.
"It does not seem to be a priority within the
legislative assembly and has yet to be taken up for discussion," said
Marvi Memon, one of the bill’s principal authors.
Masood said the bill in its present form is inadequate,
because it "is discriminatory and caters only to women and children when
our findings show that 39 percent of victims are males." Men are also in
danger of acid attack, she said, usually as a result of issues like property
disputes, financial problems and professional jealousies.
Furthermore, she said, the bill does not clearly define the
"role of the law enforcement agencies or mechanisms for regulating and
monitoring acid trade," said Masood.
Some female legislators, on the other hand, have dismissed
the need for a new law protecting women against violent assaults such as acid
throwing.
"I think we’re already over-legislated," said
member of Parliament Nafisa Shah. "The laws are there. What is needed is
strict enforcement of the existing ones," she said.
But Rehman said "special and specific laws are needed
in a country where violence against women is on the rise." In an earlier
interview with Agence France-Presse, ASF’s Masood said they recorded 48 cases
of acid attacks in 2009, up from 30 in 207.
Shahnaz Bokhari, president of the Islamabad-based
Progressive Women’s Association, which assists victims of domestic violence,
said she has supported 8,886 acid attack female survivors since 1994.
The incidence of acid attacks is particularly high in the
southern part of Punjab, the south Asian country’s cotton belt and second
largest province, said Khan.
"Lack of a regulating and monitoring framework
regarding acid, cheap price, low level of socio-economic development" are
some of the factors underlying these crimes, said Khan.
A bottle of concentrated sulphuric acid generally costs only
20 Pakistani rupees per litre (about 23 U.S. cents), said Bokhari.
"Acid is used for textile industry and cleaning cotton
seeds before being replanted," explained Khan, whose organisation has
provided medical, psychosocial, socioeconomic and legal aid to about 300 acid
survivors in Punjab since 2006 when it was formed.
While Farhat has been unrelenting in her quest for justice,
some victims are afraid of taking action against their perpetrators.
Forty-something Naeema Begum, whose husband threw acid in
her face when he divorced her in 2004, said, "I don’t want to take him to
court; I’m scared he may take my kids away from me as revenge," she said.
"Most have been threatened into silence," said
Bokhari. Their scars are not just physical, she said. "They go much
deeper."
Farhat sees beyond her disfigured body, her spirit resolute
as ever to find justice, which has not been so elusive, after all. A new law is
in the offing and her perpetrator is in jail. At the moment, though, six months
since the CJP’s directive, she has yet to receive the promised financial
assistance.
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.