Kathmandu, March 21

The participants of regional consultation meeting organised by Burns Violence Survivors-Nepal here today discussed increasing burn violence and acid attacks on women and the ways to curb such incidents.

At the meeting, several frontline responders, including representatives of community women groups, local levels and health post representatives discussed possible causes behind such attacks and problems faced by the burn and acid attack victims. They also discussed about how women have been deprived of treatment due to financial issues.

“Poverty, lack of education and awareness, cybercrime, extra marital affairs and dowry demand from in-laws are some of the causes of burn violence against women,” said Madhuri Singh, a gender specialist. She also stressed the need for psychosocial counselling to such victims.

As per the Ministry of Health, as many as 55,902 people become the victims of burn violence every year and each day some 153 become the victim of burn violence. From January 2010 to 2017, a total of 249 people became the victims of acid attack, according to Burns Violence Survivors-Nepal. The participants of the event also discussed how the hospitals in the country lacked intensive care unit for burn victims.

The workshop aimed to collect feedback from the participants on the draft manual for gender-based violence. The draft manual includes causes of burn violence, condition of burn victims and treatment available to the victims in the country.

“It also tries to address the issues of women who became victims of acid attacks and burn violence for rejecting marriage or sex proposals. We have included the roles and responsibilities of society and local levels in addressing the issues related to burn violence in the drafted manual. We are trying to collect feedback for the manual at the workshop,” said Singh.

“The workshop is also aimed to make the front-line respondents aware about their duties and responsibilities towards the victims of acid attacks and burn violence,” said Pratiksha Giri, executive director at BVS-Nepal.