acid attacks

Laxmi Agarwal was only 15 when a 32-year-old close family friend who'd been stalking her for a year, infuriated that she'd refused his romantic advances and hadn't accepted his marriage proposal, threw acid at her face on a public road. The acid marred her face; several fruitless surgeries to reduce the disfigurement later, she came to terms with the fact that no matter how much time passed, the memories from that single day on the train would be etched in her face permanently. Laxmi soon became an activist for the Stop Acid Attacks movement, NDTV Indian of the Year, the recepient of Michella Obama's 2014 International Women of Courage award, and the director of Chhanv Foundation, an organization that combats acid attacks across India. Her activism led the Supreme Court to increase legislation regulating the sale of acid such that it's not as widely accessible, and the Parliament to allow the perpetrators of acid attacks to be persecuted with more ease.

Acid attacks typically result in blindness, permanent scarring, and inevitably, societal subjugation; although acid throwing isn't a foreign concept in most parts of the world, it occurs primarily throughout South Asia. Bangladesh reports the highest number of acid attacks, with 3,512 Bangladeshi people being attacked between the years of 1999 and 2013. Attacks of this nature can be religiously, politically, or socially motivated - for example, in Pakistan, with the rise of the Taliban and the subsequent condemnation of girls attending school, acid attacks on schoolgirls walking home have become prevalent. Similar to what Laxmi experienced, acid attacks may also be motivated by the refusal of romantic advances and marriage proposals, or to punish women whose families are financially incapable of paying the dowry demanded in her marriage. And while acid attacks do occur disproportionately in developing countries, acid throwing as a form of domestic violence is common in the UK, with the amount of acid attacks doubling from 261 to 454 between 2015 and 2016.

One factor that contributes to the prominence of acid attacks is the accessibility of acid, which Laxmi has been fighting to curb. For the equivalent of 40 US cents, sulfuric acid can be purchased in motorcycle mechanic shops. For the equivalent of $1.50 in US currency, nitric or hydrochloric acid can be purchased at gold or jewelry shops, since the substances are commonly used to polish jewelry. Anti-acid attack organizations have been rallying to reduce this ease of access by fighting to necessitate licenses for those who sell and trade acid, ban acid sale and purchase in specific areas, and meticulously track all transactions entailing the trade of acid.

Contrastingly, medical care for burn victims is direly inaccessible or inadequate. For instance, scholars estimate that as few as 30% of all Bangladeshi citizens may have access to healthcare at all, let alone specialized burn treatment. Specialized facilities are sparse, preventing the treatment of the injuries of acid attack victims. Not all attacks are even reported to the police, meaning statistics describing acid throwing and its prominence may be entirely inaccurate, as they don't account for the large portion of acid attacks that likely go unreported. This is largely due to the police's indifference when it comes to violent crimes against women in the nations where acid attacks occur most frequently. According to a 2010 study from The Lanclet, there aren't any reliable statistics that describe how prevailing acid violence is in Pakistan, and because of this dearth of information, scholars also haven't able to calculate the gender proportions of acid attack victims. However, from our conclusions on acid attacks we've made based on the crimes that have been reported, we can assume that many acid attacks stem from misogynistic views and only add to the larger dominance of violence against women.

Despite the activism and the change in regulation of acid sale policies, such as the new law that acid cannot be purchased by anyone under 18 years old and that people must display their IDs before purchasing acid, Laxmi reports that not much has changed. To counter this, she's launched an organization that compiles comprehensive data on the sale of acid in regions throughout India, in hopes of persuading the courts to further increase and tighten legislation concerning acid trade, providing compensation and rehabilitation to these victims, and finally bringing them justice.

"You hold the acid that charred my dreams. 
Your heart bore no love. It had the venom stored. 
There was never any love in your eyes. They burn me with caustic glance. 
I am sad that your corrosive name will always be part of my identity that I carry with this face. 
Time will not come to my rescue. Every surgery will remind me of you. 
You will hear and you will be told that the face you burned is the face I love now. 
You will hear about me in the darkness of confinement. 
The time will be burdened for you. 
Then you will know that I am alive, free and thriving and living my dreams."
- A poem written by Laxmi Agarwal, translated from Hindi

To read more about acid attacks, visit Laxmi's organization's website at http://www.stopacidattacks.org.