Acid attack victims changed my perspective about life

“B eauty is only skin deep,” a statement all of us probably heard growing up and saw its depiction in our films, but how tightly does our society hold on to it?

Throughout my career in journalism, I’ve met countless inspiring people who changed my outlook to life, but the story that struck me the most was of Samar Mosaad and Sana Ahmed, young victims of acid attacks whom I met last year during their stay in Dubai to get treatment at Omniyati Prosthetics Art Center.

Both residing in rural areas in Egypt, Mosaad and Ahmed were brutally disfigured by men who meant to destroy their lives as revenge for merely filing a divorce and in Ahmed’s case, rejecting a marriage proposal. Ever since the attacks, both women have been struggling to find their place in societies that continue to marginalise them.

Behind acid attacks are patriarchal reasoning that a woman’s appearance is her only asset, and that by destroying her figure, she will never belong to any other man. Both women who accepted their fate and chose to face life with big smiles opened my eyes to the dark regressive side of our societies that still chooses to punish them, instead of their perpetrators.

Both attackers were sentenced to only 10 years in jail in Egypt, while Ahmed, 22, still struggles to finish her education and Mosaad, 32, had been rejected from various companies for her “appearance that would scare off customers”.

The attacks, though, failed to hide the beauty and power of Mosaad and Ahmed who choose to fight their way through in life.Truth is, tougher stance and more serious action need to be taken against this scary phenomenon. Communities have to stand together to support victims that lose their lives after such horrendous attacks.

The brutality of acid attacks isn’t merely in deforming faces, but the endless pain victims and their families go through as they come to restore the damage and battle permanent health damage. At the age of 13, Ahmed went through 75 surgeries where doctors cut out her skin from different parts of her body to add to her face after the attack that made her lose an eye. “I had prayed that God gives her peace by taking away her soul because I couldn’t bear seeing the torture,” Ahmed’s mother said as she cried over the incident that happened nine years ago, but still stung as if it was yesterday.

Today, about 1,500 people get attacked by acid annually worldwide among which 80 per cent are women, and 40-70 per cent of them are under 18. While these numbers are scary, the important question still lingers: How many mothers will cry over their daughters who lose the prime of her youth? Why should they plea for acceptance in a world that owes it to them?