Acid violence involves the intentional use of corrosive substances to harm individuals, primarily targeting women, often as a form of revenge or punishment. Legal resources often focus on criminal accountability, victim compensation, and regulation of acid sales.
Burnt Not Defeated is a 2007 report by the Campaign and Struggle Against Acid Attacks on Women (CSAAAW) that documents acid violence in Karnataka and examines the legal, social, and institutional shortcomings that enable such attacks. The report identifies acid attacks as a severe form of gender-based violence, often committed by men to punish women for rejecting advances, resisting control, or asserting autonomy in personal relationships.
A Report by the Avon Global Center for Women and Justice at Cornell Law School, the Committee on International Human Rights of the New York City Bar Association, the Cornell Law School International Human Rights Clinic, and the Virtue Foundation.
Sections 51 and 52 criminalize of the Criminal Law (Offences) Act (the “Act”) criminalizes administering, with intent to injure, a “poison or noxious substance” to another person. An individual may be found guilty of a misdemeanor, and be sentenced up to five years in prison. However, a person who carries out such an act with the intent of harming another person or causing grievous bodily harm may be found guilty, and may face up to 10 years in prison.
For years, the appellant lived with his civil wife in the same apartment (in Ukraine, the term 'civil marriage' means cohabitation of a man and a woman without official marriage registration). While intoxicated one evening, he began to accuse his wife of cheating on him with other men and degrading his honor and dignity as a man. After a verbal conflict, the man, decided to kill his wife. In order to cause the most severe physical pain, he purposefully poured sulfuric acid from a bottle on his wife and verbally wished for her death, causing serious chemical burns.
This law serves as the basis for the Colombian Criminal Code, it enumerates conducts that constitute crimes and their sanctions. The code sets forth several gender-related crimes. Article 104A criminalizes femicide, meaning the killing of women because they are female. Article 123 sanctions people who forcibly terminate a pregnancy. Article 187 prohibits forcing in-vitro treatments on women against their will. Article 229 regulates domestic violence offenses.
The victim died from concentrated sulfuric acid burns covering over 60% of his body. On the night of his death, the deceased’s female partner, the appellant, and baby spent the night with him. On the night of the attack, his landlords heard screaming coming from the apartment. When they arrived, they saw the victim, who said he did not know who attacked him, and the Appellant, who did not appear to have any burns. The appellant argued that she did not commit the attack and that they both had been attacked by a third party, possibly a former partner of the appellant.&
An 18-year old woman died from injuries sustained during acts of exorcism (involving use of boiling water, acid, and beating) carried out at the request of her parents by a healer, a few months after she told her mother that she had homosexual feelings. At first instance, the acts were qualified as torture, and the fact that the victim was in a particularly vulnerable situation (mentally and physically) was considered an aggravating factor.
The accused appeared at his former girlfriend’s kitchen window from outside and poured an acid-like substance on her. The substance was later determined to be sulfuric acid. The victim suffered first and second degree burns over 60% of her body, which resulted in a complication in the form of pneumonia in both lungs and caused her death. The court found that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt and convicted the accused of murder.
Appellant was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The deceased, a 16-year-old girl, lived with her mother and brother. For approximately a year, the deceased would sneak out and have sexual intercourse with appellant, a married man who lived approximately 200 meters away from the deceased. A week before the incident, the deceased told her mother that appellant had impregnated her. This greatly displeased her mother, and she reported this to LCs officials.
