Steps towards improve justice for victims and prevent acid attacks.
The following steps should be adopted to improve justice for victims and prevent acid attacks :
·
India must establish a process for accurately
counting incidence and prevalence rates of acid attacks. The National Crime
Records Bureau (India) should prepare annual reports with reliable data to
attract the attention of NGO’s and other non government organizations that
work to prevent the crime.
·
States must ensure that the guidelines laid
down by the Supreme Court of India in Laxmi v. Union of India are diligently
followed.
·
Police must be directed to complete their
investigations and dispose of cases expedi-tiously, which will help reduce the
time spent by courts finally resolving cases.
·
Section 114 B should be added to The Indian
Evidence Act by way of an amendment to help improve conviction rates.
·
The Indian government should undertake a
public education campaign to educate people about the importance of thoroughly
washing a victim’s body with water immediately after an acid attack, in order
to reduce the severity of injuries.
·
The Indian government must begin to educate
young people about patriarchy, women’s equality, human autonomy, privacy and
non-violence. The public must also be educated to treat acid attack victims as
normal citizens and not to stigmatize or shame them. Victims must be assured
opportunities to obtain employment and education, and cultural narratives
should be reframed to help the public understand why acid attacks crimes are
committed predominantly against women by men, and are the product of an
intolerable patriarchal society and unacceptably inadequate legal system that
treats such violence against women as a meager offense rather than a serious
life-threatening crime that damages victims for life, harm and threatens all
Indian women as a class of people, and undermines the very fabric of civilized
Indian society.