Bangladesh – Acid Burning of Women & Girls – “Beena’s Story”

 

 

 

Bangladesh: Beena’s Story
Produced
by: Ron McCullagh

“I think that it just
goes beyond their comprehension that she could not want him and if she doesn’t,
then he will destroy her face.” (Nasreen Haq, Campaigner)

There have been
about 200 acid attacks in the last year in Bangladesh. And they are on the
increase. A year ago doctors were treating one to two a month. Today they’re
treating one to two a week. It’s a uniquely cruel crime in a country where for
most young girls, their prospects of a reasonable life depend entirely on a good
marriage and motherhood.

“Beena’s Story” is a news feature which explains
the appalling lack of justice faced by hundreds of Bangladeshi women who have
been attacked by acid. Beena is seventeen. Since fourteen year-old Dano threw
the acid at her eighteen months ago, Beena has made the journey from a teenager
with prospects to a strong but scarred young woman whose ambition now is to find
work and survive. Dano remains free. Beena’s family suspect the police have been
paid off. But why does the government not act to stop the crime and why do the
police seem reluctant to prosecute the alleged attackers? The answer comes not
from the police but one of the plastic surgeons in Bangladesh’s only Burns Unit.
“There is a law in our country, but the law is not applied to the people who are
throwing acid. Maybe the people who are throwing the acid are very influential
in society so the police, the law officers, they cannot go to them and the poor
victims, they are not getting any help from their administration, from the
police, I think so. That’s why the incidents are progressing more quickly in the
absence of the law.”

Most victims of acid attacks are young women and a
group of them have decided to go public and speak out against their treatment.
As they face a difficult and dangerous future, they show remarkable courage.