By Anna Romandash
Every year, more than 500 acid attacks take place in India, mostly targeting women. We spoke with Alok Dixit, the founder of “Stop Acid Attacks” campaign, that won Best of Online Activism Award for Social Change.
How does the project work?
We launched the project in 2013, on International Women’s Day, to help victims of acid attacks. They often have a hard time communicating and integrating into society because of the incident. The society tends to victimize and ignore them, and they receive a lot of jokes and criticism. Such women often cannot get married because of their looks, but the damage goes beyond physical because it leaves huge moral impact on the women.
We wanted to unite the victims and help them get the skills, so they could lead normal lives after the attacks. It all started as a blog, but quickly, it became an offline movement. When I started writing about it, the victims joined the campaign and began sharing their stories. We have decided to launch a café where victims work; they use the profits from the café to live, and they also stay together. We are opening more cafes to help more victims. So far, we have helped more than 100 women.
Why acid?
When we started the campaign, there was no law in the country against acid attackers. So if they were charged, those were minimal charges. With our campaign, we pushed for a law against acid attacks, so now, the people, who do it receive severe punishment.
The acid is something you can buy everywhere, so we are trying to limit the places it can be bought. However, I think this weapon is just a medium, so if not acid, people can attack women with other tools. The reason for the attacks is the gender issues. Women in India get more opportunities recently, which angers many people. This is a social issue, that needs to be addressed. If we change social attitudes, it would be easier.
What’s next?
I want to start working on some educational projects after this campaign. I wish to improve the education in India. I think it will take a few years to stabilize this campaign, when the girls currently involved can learn everything to continue it. Then, I want to move on to the education sphere.
