Feminist Negotiations: Contesting Narratives of the Campaign against Acid Violence in Bangladesh

Abstract

Acid attacks against women have been increasingly reported in Bangladesh since the early 1980s. Acid attacks involve the splashing of acid (car battery or sulfuric acid) on the face and/or body of victims. While initially such cases were reported sporadically, since the mid-1990s, partly because of improved media coverage, there has been a steady rise in the number of cases reported in newspapers. At present, NGOs and government reports put total cases at about 300 annually. It is a common misconception that acid attacks against women are peculiar to Bangladesh, and that attackers are Islamic fundamentalists who punish women for "immodest" behavior (Anwary 2003). Historical evidence demonstrates that acid attacks were common in England and the U.S. in the 1800s, but declined once the police and court systems were strengthened. Such attacks are also reported in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, China, and Ethiopia (Swanson 2002). In the national context of Bangladesh, the rise in acid attacks needs to be understood not only in relation to existing gender inequality but also within its complex and shifting socioeconomic, political, and cultural processes as they intersect with neoliberal development policies and globalization.