‘Incidents of acid throwing on women dropped to 50 percent’

Islamabad: Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) on Sunday claimed that the reported cases of acid throwing on women have dropped by around 50% as compared with last five years.

According to ASF’s data, this drop of cases was a major success for acid violence and countering Violence against Women and girls (VAWG) in country. In year 2016 and 2017 there has been a total of 71 victims of acid attacks whereas in year 2018-2019, 62 cases were related to acid throwing,11 cases were of fire burn, 4 were about multiple burns and 1 was unknown.

Conviction rate has significantly increased from 17.3 per cent of total registered cases in 2014 to 2019.38 cases of acid throwing were reported from South Punjab,11 cases were of Central Punjab,1 case was of Islamabad, 1 was of Sindh , 8 cases were related to Baluchistan and 3 cases were of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. 54 FIRs were registered in year 2018 to 2019 whereas 13 cases were prosecuted.

ASFP has been the leading organisation that worked for the promulgation and implementation of the Acid and Burn Crimes Criminal Amendment 2011. ASFP has supported not only a robust monitoring of implementation of the acid and burn crime legislation but also evidence based programming and advocacy for acid and burn crime survivors.