B’deshi men pledge to fight acid attacks against women

BANGLADESH: Bangladeshi men pledged to fight against acid attacks - a vicious crime whose victims are mostly women and perpetrators usually men - to mark this year’s International Women’s Day, which falls Thursday.

Celebrities, sportsmen, schoolboys and some acid victims gave speeches, sang or told their stories as they lit candles at an event Wednesday, demanding proper enforcement of laws against the attacks. Some wore T-shirts with slogans like “Real men don’t throw acid.”

The attacks most often involve flesh-burning acid thrown onto young women’s faces or bodies by spurned suitors or angry husbands, according to the Acid Survivors Foundation.

The assaults disfigure, maim or kill dozens of people a year in poverty-ridden Bangladesh. The acid is usually obtained from battery shops, hardware stores, jewelry makers or weavers.

“We hope that not one more face gets burnt by acid ever again,” said the Acid Survivors Foundation’s executive director, Monira Rahman. The group organized the men’s gathering Wednesday at an auditorium in the country’s capital, Dhaka.

“Most attackers of this hateful and cowardly crime are men, but most men are against it,” said Showket Hossain, a member of the Foundation’s board of trustees. However, more children and men are becoming acid attack victims, often over family or property disputes.

“We men have to stop it,” Bidhan Chandra, a young man who was attacked with acid over a land dispute, said in a choked voice.

Dhaka, Thursday, AP