WUNRN
COLOMBIA TIGHTENING LAWS AGAINST
ACID ATTACKS
BOGOTÁ, Jul 11 2012 (IPS)
- Nobody will ever know if Jhon Jairo Echenique decided to take
his own life out of remorse, fear or mental illness. But the suicide followed
his arrest for the stabbing and burning with acid of his 19-year-old former
girlfriend Angélica Gutiérrez.
A law
student, Gutiérrez was attacked at home. Neighbours took her to hospital where
she died. Echenique, the prime suspect, was arrested in the Caribbean city of
The tragedy unfolded over the
Jun. 30 – Jul. 1 weekend in Cartagena, a city of one million people where, so
far this year, five women have been murdered and 213 injured in attacks,
leading to the arrest of 196 men, according to police statistics.
Figures from the United Nations
Information Centre (UNIC) say that on average, 245 women suffer some form of
violence every day making gender violence the most widespread form of human
rights abuses.
One form of violence that is
becoming increasingly common in this country is the throwing of acid or other
corrosive substances on a woman’s face or other parts of her body, often
leaving the victim so horribly disfigured that she has no hope ever of living a
normal life.
“Perpetrators, often with
malicious intent and cruelty, seek to leave a mark on their victims as a
constant reminder of the reason why they were attacked – generally an incident
prompted by jealousy, a separation, or similar conflicts that could have been
solved peacefully,” legislator Gloria Stella Díaz tells IPS.
Díaz, who belongs to the
Christian party, Movimiento Independiente de Renovación (Independent Movement
for Complete Renovation or MIRA), has introduced a bill in parliament aimed at
protecting citizens against acid attacks.
Acid attacks are not limited to
domestic violence. In a recent case in
Another recent case in
“One (attack) was committed purely out of
cruelty, and the other because the victim refused the aggressor money,” Díaz
commented during an IPS interview.
“Victims of such attacks have
now decided to speak out and are backing the bill with their signatures;
they’re even willing to attend the parliament session to lend their support
under the slogan ‘No More Silence; Punishment for the Perpetrators’,” Díaz
said.
The initiative is part of a
campaign called ‘Faces With No Traces of Impunity’ aimed
at changing existing laws that treat acid attacks as
personal injury offences meriting a nine-year sentence that can be reduced for
good behaviour.
“With this bill we propose to
change how this very serious crime is defined, classifying it as a separate
offence that would allow harsher penalties and longer sentences,” Díaz said.
The bill proposes a minimum of
12 years in prison, for the act of throwing acid. But, if the target of the
attack is a woman, a minor or a public figure whose livelihood depends on his
or her image, the attacker could receive a sentence of up to 20 years.
“Another aim of the proposed
law is for the state to implement a system of integral assistance services,
including legal and psychological counselling, job placement and
anti-discrimination campaigns. The state would cover the cost of reconstructive
and plastic surgeries,” Diaz said.
In an effort to prevent such
crimes from going unreported, the bill seeks to make it mandatory for hospitals
or medical facilities, both public and private, to report all attacks to the
police so that a criminal investigation can be initiated.
If the bill is passed into law,
the sale of corrosive substances would also be controlled. This would mean that
“when a crime (involving such substances) is reported in any city, it will be
possible to establish who and where they were purchased, thus helping identify
the perpetrators.”
The situation in
Diaz said she would like to see
Obaid-Chinoy’s film which claimed an Oscar at this year’s awards. “It’s a
very real tragedy,” she said, stressing that the situation needs to be
addressed by all sections of society.
The bill, which has been
approved in an initial session, must undergo three more before it can become
law. Diaz is optimistic that it will be passed during the next legislative
session that begins on Jul. 20.
“There’s political will and
support from many sectors, including the attorney general’s office which has
already appointed a prosecutor specialising in crimes of this type,” she said.
Media, she said, must also
report acid attacks “with sensitivity, raising awareness for prevention and
firmly supporting this initiative, so that aggressors will know that they will
be punished. And it has to be done without sensationalism.”