"Don't let me die!" Yanelis Arias (42 years old) shouted according to the neighbors, after being sprayed with the devil's acid. On April 20, a man knocked on the door of his house identifying himself as a messenger from a flower shop. The actual delivery was spraying a lethal liquid on his face and body. Arias is one of the 14 women victims of aggression by this corrosive and that adds to the statistics of just over 81 femicides during the year 2021, according to the data offered for this article by the Fundación Vida Sin Violencia. So far in January, four more have been registered.
Yanelis Arias leaves three children in the orphanage.
The Dominican was a resident in the United States, but was on vacation at the family home in Tenares, in the municipality of the Hermanas Mirabal province, northeast of the Dominican Republic.
This province is named after the Dominican heroines (Patria, Minerva and María Teresa Mirabal), in whose honor the International Day for the Eradication of Violence against Women is celebrated every November 25.
The devil's acid has destroyed the lives of 15 people until December 31, and 14 of them are women, according to the records of the Pearl F. Ort Burn Unit, of the Luis Eduardo Aybar hospital in Santo Domingo.
The reasons recorded: "Sexist violence, jealousy, theft and envy."
The substance is a mixture of different agents that becomes a highly corrosive weapon.
It arises from the combination of sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, muriatic acid and vehicle paint solvent, to which is added the so-called "plumber" (substance to unclog pipes).
Yanelis Arias, before the devil's acid attack.
The case of Arias, 42, has been the most recent (August 2021) and the only fatality of the year.
This woman was attacked one morning at her vacation home in Salcedo, in the Hermanas Mirabal province, when someone posing as a flower delivery man knocked on the door to commit the criminal act.
Arias died of septic shock from the wounds inflicted after hovering between life and death for 15 days. Provided by the family
"It can affect the bones and vital organs such as the liver and kidneys, as well as cause blindness and permanent deformation of the face and other parts of the body," explains surgeon Eddy Bruno, director of the Pearl F. Ort Burn Unit. According to the Dominican doctor, between 1,600 and 1,700 cases of burns arrive at this center's emergency room per year, of which 5% are due to chemical substances. Of these, 4% are women. “Almost all of them arrive due to an assault due to gender violence.”
The mortality rate is low, according to the doctor, who affirms that in the survivors "there are physical and psychological sequels for life."
That of Yanelis Arias is among the statistics of those "low mortality rates."
He died of septic shock caused by his injuries.
So far, at the close of this report on January 20, 2022, no new victim has been registered for this cause.
sexist violence
The Dominican Republic is the second country in Latin America and the Caribbean, after Honduras (4.7), with the highest incidence of femicides in 2020, according to data provided by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). .
In the Caribbean country, out of every 100 women, 2.4 are murdered due to sexist violence.
According to data from the Life Without Violence Foundation and statistics provided by the Attorney General's Office (PGR), of the 81 deaths during 2021, "62 were intimate femicides", that is, when the victims have maintained a relationship of couple with their executioner.
"One of the problems we have is that the victims had not reported 89% of the episodes this year," says the Public Prosecutor, Ana Andrea Villa Camacho, who also chairs the Directorate of Gender Violence of the Public Ministry.
For her part, Judge Nancy Salcedo, who directs the Gender Violence Commission of the Judiciary, justifies that 89% do not report "because they are thinking with their stomachs."
“It is a cultural problem, a patriarchal society and even an economic issue.
In the courts we find that the attacked women ask us to release the perpetrator because that man is the one who supports his children.
They depend on them economically,” says Salcedo, also an adviser to the Judiciary and judge of the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice.
Impunity
In many of the cases, impunity is added due to the lack of a judicial system and a weak Ministry of the Interior and Police;
also to the lack of information and official registration of those attacked and, above all, to the lack of coordination between the competent public institutions in the area.
There is, for example, no action protocol for notification of the Public Health System when a woman is admitted to a hospital with evidence of sexist violence, with the other authorities, such as: the Ministry of the Interior and Police, the Ministry of Women and Power of attorney.
Added to this are the incompetence of legal aid lawyers, who are overloaded and unprepared in gender matters, and the high price of private lawyers, among other obstacles.
This is the example of Yomaira Aquino (26 years old), who was attacked with acid while she slept in her house with her two children, during the early hours of the morning. He could not see his victimizer or victimizer, who entered through the back door of the wooden house. He never received counseling nor was his situation notified to the authorities when he entered the hospital.
“I found out what had happened to me when I was discharged two months later. I was unconscious most of the time. I suspect who they could be… But the police never pressed them to confess and he [her husband] was released after three days. She [the husband's mistress] was never arrested. The inspectors of the police force did not come to my house either, nor were there any investigations. When I was discharged from the Burn Unit, I returned to my hometown, four hours from the capital, and the trips are very expensive to continue with the lawsuit. I have to focus now on recovering what I can from my face and my health”, explains the young woman, mother of two children.
The same complaint was raised by the family of the deceased Yanelis Arias through the Executive Director of the Office for the Development of Women of the Hermanas Mirabal Province, Linabel González, to the local media.
"The Public Ministry never approached the health center" to interview the victim during the 14 days she was admitted and "conscious," they say.
Mirian Santana's case came to court because she herself investigated and followed the trail of her attacker through social networks.
His victimizer fled to Chile after committing the crime.
Years later he returned to the country on vacation and there was no search and seizure alarm.
Santana found out through Facebook about her return to the country, and moved "heaven and earth" to put her on the bench before the judiciary.
She was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Despite the fact that the highest percentage of crimes with devil's acid are against women and, despite the seriousness of the injuries, few exemplary criminal convictions have been carried out to date.
In 2020, the attack on Yocairi Amarante, then 19 years old, marked a before and after in the face of the indifference of the authorities thanks to the fact that she herself made her story viral on social networks.
The young woman was sprayed by her ex-partner with the corrosive liquid, disfiguring her face and causing the loss of her right eye, as well as the deprivation of 50% of the vision of the left one and other serious and irreversible damage.
The pressure of society, dismayed by the facts, demanded a forceful sentence.
On the eve of the trial against her three aggressors, on September 30, the Attorney General of the Republic, Míriam Germán Brito, instructed all prosecutors in the country so that attacks with the devil's acid "grant the crime the legal classification of act of torture and/or barbarism” and request against those involved the maximum penalty established by law, typified in articles 303 to 304 of the Dominican Penal Code.
It's 30 years in prison.
Two days after the public statements of the Attorney General, the Third Collegiate Court of the National District sentenced the two perpetrators and the mastermind – the ex-partner – to 30 years in prison, "for the cause of Yocairy Amarante."
“The devil's acid is a form of extreme, femicidal, perverse violence that is not literally typified in the current Penal Code as a crime.
What the Public Ministry does is take advantage of article 303 of Law 24-97 (which governs crimes of violence against women and domestic violence)”, explains the district attorney, Ana Andrea Villa Camacho.
Due to the high incidence of the use of this substance to harm people, some 3,500 cases registered before 2010, the National Institute for the Protection of Consumer Rights (Pro Consumer) issued a resolution that definitively prohibits the sale of chemicals with which this corrosive mixture is made.
But in reality, 12 years later, the lethal product is easily accessible in the country.
Anonymously, a distributor confessed to local media that the bottle of corrosive liquid can be purchased for about 400 Dominican pesos (seven euros).
Before the cameras, the merchant acknowledged that he can sell up to 20 jars in one day.
Meanwhile, manufacturing costs amount to about 250 pesos (four euros) per container.
At present, in the country there are no exact figures of the total number of people burned by the devil's acid.
“Today we have fewer patients than a decade ago, but they are much more serious.
In addition, the attacks now have a component of hired assassins, ”says the director of the Pearl F. Ort Burn Unit, Eddy Bruno.
The victims consulted for this report agree that the economic cost of assisting a person attacked by this substance has a very high price, since multiple surgeries are required, not only aesthetic reconstruction. Added to these health expenses is the difficulty that they lose purchasing power due to their physical appearance, which does not facilitate the survivors' reintegration into the labor market.
To date, there is no specific institution or foundation in the country to care for those harmed by the devil's acid. The aid that some receive is through independent people, public authorities, NGOs and social foundations very oriented towards reconstruction surgeries, and many times they do not realize the need for specialized psychological support and protocols for reintegration into the labor market.
“I want to return to working life.
And I assure you that it is also the wish of my colleagues to have a stable job.
It's not about living a life of charity, it's about rights”, claims Santana who, together with a group of about 10 victims, where there are also two men attacked by their partners and/or ex-partners, are trying to join forces to create a devil's acid victim organization, but they lack resources and guidance.
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