Shabina Begum

Fellow’s Profile

Shabina Begum

Fellow’s Profile

Shabina Begum

Combating acid violence and prosecuting perpetrators

Fellowship

Themes

Focus

Preventing acid violence by improving the successful conviction rate for acid attackers

Countries

Fellowship year

2012

Locality

London

Biography

I am an international family law consultant at Dawson Cornwell. I was awarded a Fellowship in 2012 and it enabled me to travel to Sri Lanka, Cambodia and India to conduct legal research on the issue of acid violence in the context of gender-based violence.

As a result of the research I had conducted, in 2017 I was interviewed by both Sky News and BBC Radio 5 Live about acid violence, to comment on the existing laws in the UK and whether our sentencing powers were harsh enough. I spoke about the alarming way acid was being used within the domestic violence remit and as a weapon by gangs. Acid is now recognised in the UK as a highly dangerous weapon and there are harsh punishments for anyone found carrying it in public.

This Fellowship was the starting point of my international research career, as in 2015 I conducted a policy review for the UN on the issue of child, early and forced marriage in Bangladesh and the UK. I was also awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2017 to undertake an LLM at Cornell to conduct research on child marriage in the USA. I am part of the pro bono legal team of the Safeguard Futures Ban Child Marriage campaign in the UK.

Disclaimer

All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.

Disclaimer

All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.

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