Heartbreaking: Terrorism against women.
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
Terrorism in this part of the world usually means bombs exploding or hotels burning, as the latest horrific scenes from Mumbai attest. Yet alongside the brutal public terrorism that fills the television screens, there is an equally cruel form of terrorism that gets almost no attention and thrives as a result: flinging acid on a woman’s face to leave her hideously deformed.
Here in Pakistan, I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region.
This month in Afghanistan, men on motorcycles threw acid on a group of girls who dared to attend school. One of the girls, a 17-year-old named Shamsia, told reporters from her hospital bed: “I will go to my school even if they kill me. My message for the enemies is that if they do this 100 times, I am still going to continue my studies.”
When I met Naeema Azar, a Pakistani woman who had once been an attractive, self-confident real estate agent, she was wearing a black cloak that enveloped her head and face. Then she removed the covering, and I flinched.
Acid had burned away her left ear and most of her right ear. It had blinded her and burned away her eyelids and most of her face, leaving just bone.
Six skin grafts with flesh from her leg have helped, but she still cannot close her eyes or her mouth; she will not eat in front of others because it is too humiliating to have food slip out as she chews.
“Look at Naeema, she has lost her eyes,” sighed Shahnaz Bukhari, a Pakistani activist who founded an organization to help such women, and who was beginning to tear up. “She makes me cry every time she comes in front of me.”
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5 comments:
It hurts me to look at her. not only because of her eyes that are just red slits, but also because of all of the emotional trauma she must have endured. I have heard of husbands doing the same to wives who refuse to do as they command.
your story on this issue is great, revealing the plight of women (and children) in the middle east (and globally) is an important thing to do, and I applaude you for it. However, to say that "Because women dont usually matter in this part of the world" is an incorrect statement. Just because they are mistreated by their fellow citizens in that particular part of the world, does not automatically mean they dont matter. People such as you and I obviouslly think they matter a great deal... Anyway, just wanted to point that out. Great story anyway, keep up the great work!
Divya, thank you for your comment. However, I am not the author of this piece. This article is an op/ed by Nicholas D. Kristof, for The New York Times. I'm sharing it here because I felt it was important to get the word out. If you would like to direct your critique to the author of the piece, I'd recommend clicking the link at the bottom of this entry.
What a terrible act of violent! It is so sad to know that this is still going on nowadays!
thats horrible, but thanks for spreading the word
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