Blind acid victim shares her painful
Story 23 years later
WHEN she was 19 years old, Prem Srey Oun was a young woman with a beautiful face, but she was cruelly attacked by a rival rubber merchant, who blinded her in an acid attack. She now makes a living sewing handcrafted products and selling them online, struggling to raise her two daughters, alone.
Sharing her story with The Post, she explains that she was now 42 years old, and had grown up with six siblings in Thlok village of Tbong Khmum province’s Suong commune and town.
In 1999, she was working as a broker, buying and selling rubber to support her elderly parents. Her siblings had moved away with their own families after marriages.
One day, she was riding her motorbike to purchase rubber, just as she had done many times. A voice she recognised said to her “wild chickens cannot scatter domestic chickens”. She turned to the person, and felt a liquid hit her face, burning and causing excruciating pain. She knew at once that acid had been thrown on her face.
Srey Oun she added that she was immediately blinded and called for help. The perpetrator was arrested immediately by local police and detained in Trapeang Thlong Prison.
Srey Oun was sent for emergency treatment at a private clinic in Phnom Penh, where she was hospitalised for four months. After her treatment, she was transferred to a Catholic Church in Chaom Chao commune.
After another three months of treatment, she was relocated to her parent’s house in her hometown.
“A Christian organisation provided a series of surgeries, including skin grafts, but the doctors were unable to save my eyes,” she said.
Because she needed treatment once a week in Phnom Penh, she rented a room in Tuol Kork. She sold products online to earn some money for her daily expenses.
Later, she found out that the person whose products she was selling was taking advantage of her, and she decided to cease the job.
She said that due to the Christian organisation that helped her until 2007, she found comfort in attending church. There, she found that listening to the bible with fellow worshippers discouraged her from having dark thoughts of ending her life. Her spirit was strengthened and she felt like she
could overcome her hardship.
That year, she was introduced to an organisation that helped the victims of acid attacks. For six months, they provided her with training, teaching her to sew.
At that time, she met a man who had also been attacked in the same way – although he had not lost his sight – and they were married by the organisation.
She and her husband had two daughters, but one day he announced that he was leaving her for another woman. Since the divorce, she and her eldest daughter have continued to sell hand made products such as bags, backpacks, hats and scarves, earning from 600,000 to one million riel a month.
Her eldest daughter is now 13 years old and studies in grade five. Her youngest, 5, is attending grade one at a Christian centre near Indra Devi School in Tuol Kork.
“I worry about my children’s safety, as she has to ride bicycles a long way to school, from the Tuol Sangke area to Indra Devi School. My eldest daughter is only 13, but she is responsible for taking care of the whole family,” she said.
She says that she has heard her eldest daughter complaining that she has to study full time while also selling products online and doing all of the families cooking. However, her daughter loves her and takes good care of her.
She added that some children had sometimes made fun of her children for having a blind mother, but her kids had told her they paid the teasing no mind, and that the important thing is that their mother is happy.
“I love my daughters so much, but I will never know how beautiful they are. It is one of my life’s greatest tragedies that I will never look upon them,” she said.