Bangladesh: Women work against acid-throwing
DHAKA, BANGLADESH–Naripokkho, a Bangladeshi women’s group, is working against throwing acid in the faces of women and girls, a form of violence against women that is becoming increasingly common in their country. ACla throwing is generally clone by men and boys for reasons of revenge for sexual rejection or dowry issues. The women are scarred for life and often withdraw into lives of isolation.
Naripokkho noticed that the newspapers had recorded 80 cases of acid– throwing from 1983 until 1996, when there were 56 reports of acid throwing. In 1997, the group held a three-day workshop for nine women who had survived such assaults, all of whom were teenage women.
Now Naripokkho is trying to press the government, the police, and medical professionals to address this as a serious issue.
The group plans to:
o network with the burned women;
o write personal columns about the issue in newspapers;
o organize a march against acid violence in March;
o urge doctors to provide surgery for the women;
o create income-generating activity for the women;
o make available educational opportunities for those whose eyesight cannot be restored;
o provide working women’s hostels for the women; and
o press the legal system for justice.
–info from Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights Newsletter
Copyright Off Our Backs, Inc. Mar 1998
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