Flora (pseudo name), presently working for a human right organization, was still haunted by the memory of the day she got burnt by acid.
“I overcome the pain that my body bore, but I am yet to overcome the mental trauma,” she said.
“I wake up at night and breathe heavily as the fear still wakes me up. At least, when I am in my subconscious level,” Flora told the Dhaka Tribune adding she thought of visiting a psychotherapist to overcome the trauma but could not afford one.
Like Flora, acid survivors who were facing their trauma every single day, across the country, called upon to ensure psychological treatment for the acid survivors at a national conference at Proshika’s Human Resource Development Centre in Koitta, Manikganj on Saturday.
Hearing their painful stories, psychology department of the Dhaka University expressed their interest to provide counselling to the acid survivors at the conference.
The two-day long conference held a number of group works and workshops to identify the problems that acid survivors were facing. The groups formed following three categories - male, female and children, came up with several recommendations to overcome such problems.
Pointing out that most of the acid survivors were usually being excluded from daily life’s work due to the social stigma to the acid survivors, the groups made several recommendations.
These recommendations include – ensuring exemplary punishment to the perpetrators, mental help to the survivors including inclusion of such survivors in social activities such as picnic, cultural programme and household work.
There were more than 3,500 victims and a total of 1,812 cases have been filed accusing 4,682 people, according to the government Acid Crime Case Monitoring Cell. So far the law personnel have managed to round up 12% and only 10% of the cases have seen conviction.
The acid survivors also took vows to stand against violence against women at the convention.
Speaking at the conference, Joint Secretary of the Law ministry Shawkat Mostafa admitted that despite of limitations, the government has responsibilities to such victims.
Pointing out several steps, particularly on vocational training, women and children ministry Secretary Tariq-ul-Islam assured that the ministry would always help such victims.
According to Bangladesh Mohila Parishad statistics, 359 incident of acid violence against women took place from 2009 to 2012.
Six incidents of such crimes were reported only from January to March of this year among which one victim died