Equality Is Not Enough, Ensuring Equity In Acid Attack Legislation In India

Recently, the movie 'Chhapaak', based on the story of the acid-attack survivor Lakshmi, was released. SHE, THE VICTIM: ACID-ATTACKS AS A FORM OF GENDER-VIOLENCE The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and ratified by India in 1993.Under Article 1 of the CEDAW, 'discrimination against women' has been interpreted to include gender-based violence, which in turn is defined as "violence which is directed against a woman because she is a woman or which affects women disproportionately". Atleast four different reliable data-sets recorded in separate researches can be perused to draw the above conclusion – annual statistics of the National Crime Record Bureau ; a study on acid violence in Bangladesh, India and Cambodia by the Avon Global Centre for Women and Justice, Cornell Law School which records all the acid-attacks published in Indian newspapers from 2002 to 2010; a study on acid-attacks on women in India published in the Indian Journal of Burns which analyzes the medical records of acid-attack victims in certain hospitals from 2012 to 2017; and a study published in the Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research which records data on acid-attacks from 2010 to 2016. The Law Commission has also noted that most of the reported cases have been against women, particularly young women, for rejecting marriage proposals, spurning suitors, denying dowry, preventing sexual advances, etc. Both CSAAAW and the Law Commissionhave recognized that acid-attacks are systemically used as "a weapon to silence and control women by destroying what has been constructed as the primary constituent of their identity – their bodies".That the offenders intend to attack the 'beauty' and 'sexuality' of womenis also evident from a study of the body parts primarily targeted – face, neck, upper body, breasts, buttocks, vagina etc.IJBreported that facial disfiguration occurred in 100% of the cases while genitals were affected in 5.8% of the cases.