Acid crimes

Two recent incidents in which women were badly injured by having acid thrown at them once again highlight this appalling crime — but also highlight the failure of the state to prosecute those who perpetrate it. In one case, an elderly man threw acid on his young wife ‘on suspicion’ of an illicit relationship; and in the other case, a woman was attacked with acid because she had given birth to a baby girl. Acid attacks should be the easiest of cases to prosecute. The perpetrator and the victim are usually known to one another; if they live, the victims can give an evidential statement to the police and later give a witness account of the crime in court. There are also often witnesses to the crime nearby and it should be a simple matter for the police to make an arrest and see through a successful prosecution — but this rarely happens.

Acid attacks became illegal in Pakistan only as recently as 2010 with the Acid Control and Crime Prevention Bill nationally, and are scheduled as an Anti-Terrorist Act offence in Punjab, a move that other provinces would do well to replicate. At least in theory, the sale of acid is now regulated and there is enabling legislation to prosecute both those who throw acid and those who supply it. Despite this, acid-throwing crimes are rising with no commensurate rise in prosecutions. The law is rarely enforced in rural areas where the majority of attacks happen. The courts are often sympathetic to the victims but prosecutions can fail because of poor evidential procedures by the police or pressure from the families of both victim and assailant. Yet again, it is the women of Pakistan on the wrong end of the law as well as the wrong end of a pernicious cultural trait that appears difficult to countervail. Rigorous enforcement of the law relating to the sales of acid may go some way to limiting the crime, because attitudinal change is nowhere in sight.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2013.

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