June 15 ,2012
Acid Throwers in Pakistan
A few weeks ago the Los Angeles Times had a front page article about Pakistan. Unfortunately, it was nothing to be proud of, and wasn’t even about terrorism or bombs or bin Laden. It was instead a horrific tale of a 10-year-old girl whose face had been horribly disfigured by an acid attack. Apparently, four men on motor bikes had approached her mother and her and tossed the scarring sulfuric acid in their direction, the mother avoided a major injury, but the child was devastated. The photo of the poor girl was very disturbing to look at.
Acid attacks on women are not anything new. They have been going on for some time in Pakistan. They often have their roots in some sort of domestic dispute, in this case the attackers were led by the former fiancé of the older sister of the victim. It turned out the wedding had been called off when it came out he had another wife and children.
150 women or more are burned in these acid attacks each year in Pakistan, and so far the legal system has offered little protection. While the attack was a crime, the law would allow any punishment to be avoided if the perpetrator reached a cash settlement with the victim’s family. In the case of the 10-year-old girl, it amounted to about 5,000 dollars. A fair amount of money to a poor family in Pakistan, but it is no justice for destroying a little girl. Recently, the law was amended to do away with these out-of-court settlements, but that took effect a few weeks after this attack.
The real problem in Pakistan is the lack of justice. No matter how well the laws are written, the poor have little ability to get a fair hearing, and even more so for poor women. The legal system is run in English, a language most of the victims can’t understand. The courts and the police are subject to pressure and bribes from the strong and the wealthy, while the weak and the poor have nowhere to turn. One of the main appealing aspects of the Taliban, whether in Afghanistan or Pakistan, is the sense that their justice is much more equitable and fair to the poor.
What can be done to end this problem? I have no obvious answers. I just know that I felt a deep anger at what I had read. These attacks only happen because the perpetrators know that they can do such things in broad daylight in front of witnesses and still get away with it. Ideally, Pakistan can develop a system of justice that harshly punishes these crimes and deters the would-be attackers. But that is perhaps decades away. Much social change, education, and legal and moral progress will have to happen before we get there.
Until then, is there any alternative? The documentary “Saving Face” just won the Academy Award for profiling one Pakistani-British plastic surgeon who dedicated his time to repairing the damaged faces of these acid victims, many of them women attacked by their own husbands. That is an admirable response, but it does not end the attacks. Perhaps the only thing that will stop them is a little street justice. The assailants are usually not hard to identify. Perhaps an outraged Pakistani with some connections could see to it that these assailants are subjected to the ultimate penalty. Or maybe the police could find that they resisted arrest a bit too vigorously. Vigilantism is not in general a good idea for any society, but if a few of these acid-throwers ended up getting what they deserve, maybe it would have an effect that is worth the price. Something needs to be done.
