By Sudeshna Sarkar
IANS
Kathmandu : While Nepal's women politicians are clamouring for higher representation in the government, fear stalks women in the southeastern region of the country due to increasing cases of acid attacks.
A rampant crime in neighbouring India and Bangladesh, acid attacks on women have now risen substantially in just one year in Morang and Sunsari districts near the Indian border, says a women's rights organisation.
"I have been working in Sunsari for five years," says Manjita Upadhyay, who works for Women's Rehabilitation Centre (Worec). "Earlier I had only heard about acid attacks. But in the last one year, I have actually witnessed five to six victims."
The names and ages vary but most of the victims have some things in common. They come from low-income families with a low literacy levels and have some Indian connection.
An 18-year-old Indian woman living in Sunsari was gang-raped and then had acid thrown in the face. It left her maimed for life and her husband and his family abandoned her.
Upadhyay narrates the case of another Indian woman who came to live in Sunsari after her marriage. "She had acid thrown at her after a property dispute," Upadhyay says. "The attacker was a local schoolteacher."
There is no concerted public condemnation, let alone any case of the attackers being brought to justice.
Akriti Rai, 22, was attacked by her husband, his first wife and his sister. Rai's husband Santosh is a soldier and has been sheltered by the Nepalese army. The army said it would conduct an internal investigation into the attack.
It was never made public what punishment Santosh received, if any at all, while Akriti lives with massive scars on her forehead, cheeks and nose that will never go away.
The army has been consistently turning a deaf ear to human rights organisations' demand that soldiers guilty of civilian crimes be tried in civilian courts.
Many of the acid attacks have been occurring in Biratnagar, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala's hometown.
A nursing mother in the same town, Sadina Khatun, had acid thrown at her by her husband Mohammad Aslam when she was breastfeeding her baby. Aslam is said to have been suspicious that she was having an affair. The attack has left bruises on Sadina's face and left arm and burnt the baby in the forehead as well.
Manjta Upadhyay enumerated the causes for the growing attacks.
"There is no specific law for such a crime," she said. "Then there is the state of lawlessness where the state is ineffective and the culprits get away without any deterring punishment."
The open border between India and Nepal also encourages crime in the border towns. "There are cases when a man wanted by police flees to India and spends the day there, sneaking back at night to sleep in his own bed," Upadhyay said.
The feudal society in Nepal's Terai belts, where women are regarded as subservient and of little worth, allows such crimes against women to flourish, she said.
"There is this psychological factor," she said. "When a man suspects his wife or girlfriend of infidelity, there's this desire to punish her by 'marring' her for ever so that she becomes unattractive to other men."