Urban Thought Collective

I received an email from a good friend of mine with a link to a New York Times op-ed piece about acid attacks on women in Pakistan.

Apparently, as a way to terrorize women, men have been throwing acid on their faces, leaving them severely disfigured.

Journalist Nicholas Kristof has been investigating acid attacks from Asia to Afghanistan, and shares the story of Naeema Azar, a Pakistani and former real estate agent who divorced her husband and made a decent living to support herself and three children. Once the divorce was final, her husband claimed he wanted to come over to say goodbye to their kids. Instead, he pulled out a bottle of acid and poured it on her. She said her flesh began to fall off, leaving her bones exposed.

He writes: “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.”

Her husband was never arrested and has since disappeared.

According to Progressive Women’s Association, an organization fighting for the rights of women in Pakistan, which also assists victims with seeking treatment and legal counsel, says on its website that acid attacks are one of many violent acts against women.

Other forms of violence include “honor killings,” where women are murdered for disgracing their family, and “stove bursts” attacks in which husbands claim their wives were cooking and the stove mysteriously burst into flames, setting their wives ablaze.

And do you know why these women are burned alive? It ranges from not bearing their husbands a son, husbands wanting a divorce but unable to afford to support their first family while taking on a second family and, one that’s often the focal point of many comedy routines, problems with the mother-in-law.

Human rights activists estimated that three women die a day from stove death, according Progressive Women’s Association. In the last eight years, over 4,000 women have been set on fire by in-laws and spouses. The women ages are between 18-35 years old, with 30 percent being pregnant at the time of their attack.

Pakistan has no burn centers. Victims receive care from existing hospitals. Women are reluctant to seek justice because of so many barriers that stand in their way, one major obstacle being the police department’s hesitance to investigate “family matters.” If a woman finds the strength to pursue legal action, Progressive Women’s Association states that, “the women simply do not survive long enough for the justice system to complete its cycle and the cases are dropped. Should they manage to recover, the women are scared of further retribution.”

When will it end?

I’ve heard some men brag about how they’ve never hit a woman, but I’ve come to realize that abuse – whether physical, emotional or verbal – is just an expression of how someone thinks. The husbands may have committed the brutal act, but it is the collective belief that women are inferior, that kills women all over the world every single day.

And just for the record, domestic violence is the leading cause of death for women between the ages 15-44 years old. It is also the leading cause of death of pregnant women. The CDC reports that African American and Native American women are at the highest risk of intimate partner homicide.

Women in the United States may not die at the hands of their partners from stove death, honor killings or acid attacks, but it is the same culture of patriarchy and impunity that murders women. When will we recognize that violence, any form of violence, against women is a community problem, not a personal matter? It’s everyone’s business.

Peace.

UTC readers: In all that we seek to be or do or have, we humbly realize that in the Presence is our power to think, our very thought of aspiration, our will to commence, our strength to keep on, our power to achieve, and the glory of all our accomplishments. This is the Truth and it is now done. ~ A prayer from “Discover the Power Within You”

Envisioning you with much love, light and fulfillment. See you next week.

Yaminah Ahmad is editor-in-chief of The Atlanta Voice and contributing editor to Collective Voices, a newspaper published by the non-profit, SisterSong: Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective. More information on the group can be found at www.sistersong.net. Ahmad can be reached at missyaminah@gmail.com.