Canada First Immigration Reform Committee

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Andrew Biraj, ReutersAcid survivor Khodeza Begum, left, attends an international conference in Dhaka yesterday. Khodeza Begum still shivers in fear when she remembers the winter night eight years ago when an unidentified attacker sprayed acid on her and her baby girl as they slept in their Bangladesh shantytown home. "The corrosive liquid badly burned my face and part of my child's head," said the 30-year-old, her face partly covered to hide the scars. "But I received no justice from police or court as I could not identify the offender," she told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the Bangladesh Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) in Dhaka yesterday. ASF officials, police and victims said acid attacks mostly result from refusal of a sexual advance, demand for dowry or family disputes over land. Most of the victims were young women. As well as horrific scarring and inevitable psychological trauma, organizers of the conference said many victims, such as Ms. Begum, are denied justice. Others face social isolation and ostracism by families. "Lucky I am that my husband did not abandon us, unlike the fate that befall on many acid victims," said the woman, who comes from Bangladesh's southern Satkhira district. Police sometimes take the side of the offenders for a bribe and protect them from the law, Nur Jahan, another acid victim, told the conference, which was attended by about 600 acid victims from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Uganda and Nepal. Samina Afzal Naz, an official of the Acid Survivors Foundation Pakistan, said acid attacks over spurned sexual advances or land disputes were also a problem in her country. "We started working in Pakistan only two years ago and have already identified 149 acid victims in the Punjab region," Ms. Naz said. ASF officials said the number of acid attacks in Bangladesh had decreased since the government enacted tough laws that set death as the maximum penalty for acid throwers. "When we founded ASF in Bangladesh in 1999, the number of acid victims annually recorded was around 500 in the country. The number has now gone down well below 100," said John Morrison, the organization's founder. Access to good medical care for victims remains a problem, however, ASF officials said. Bangladesh, home to nearly 150 million people, has only one 50-bed burns unit in a public sector hospital.

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