Acid attack victim demands justice

KARACHI: Mother of three, Yasmeen of Bengali Para, a slum area of Buffer Zone, is another addition to the long list of acid attack survivors in Pakistan.

Her life is miserable and future bleak. Her demand is simple: ‘I need justice.'

She states that she was married to a Muhammad Illyas and was the mother of his three children. She said that due to brutal violence by her husband, she had left his house and moved to her parents house with her daughters, while her son lived with her husband. She said she wanted Khula and her husband had threatened that he would burn her with acid.

Yasmeen says on June 22, 2010, her husband visited the house of her parents and suddenly threw acid from a hidden bottle on her and fled. She was rushed to the Burns Center of Civil Hospital Karachi, where doctors said she received 30 percent burn injuries and one of her eyes was permanently damaged.

Zia Ahmed Awan says that the growing number of acid throwing cases should be a matter of serious concern for the government and society. He said according to the database complied by Madadgaar helpline as many as 2,274 burn cases of women, including acid throwing attacks, were reported in the mainstream Pakistani media from the year 2000 to June 2010.

He said during the last 10 years some 78,602 cases of violence against women were recorded by the Madadgaar database. He said these reported cases are only a tiny fraction of the actual number of cases, as majority of the survivors do not report to the police or talk to the media due to social and cultural taboos.

He demanded that the government should take solid steps to end the cases of violence against women. He said presently there is only one burns center in Sindh, working Karachi, and many burn victims die while being shifted in from other parts of the province. He demanded that such burns centers should be established in all teaching hospitals of the province.