The newspapers few weeks back were flooded with New York Ramp walk pictures and story of Reshma Qureshi ,an acid attack survivor from India .Her journey from an acid attack victim to being a survivor ,an activist and now being model to walk the ramp in New York is inspiring, incredible and heart breaking. Her pictures will make you cry and her smile will bring back your smile. There are thousands of Reshma in India who have undergone such pain and horror in their lives and she is a representation of them all.
Through my blog I want to congratulate Reshma Qureshi for her determination and spirit and as well the the NGO ‘Make love not Scars’ who are helping these wonderful women to create an awareness to ban the unregulated sale of acid and their efforts to integrate the Acid Attack Survivors back in the society .
There are lot of NGOs in India and subcontinent working to help such victims by giving them counselling and medical aid. They are doing commendable jobs to connect these isolated women to social media and normalize their lives. One of the issue they have raised is to regulate the sale of these acids in normal drug stores and grocery stores .The local people use it as a cheap replacement for toilet cleaners. Although the ban has been announced by Supreme Court of India but still acid is sold publicly in some parts of countries where these incidents are more common.An ongoing activism and regulation is required to bring this law under full implementation. The major cause is average Indian’s ignorance to root cause of this ban, they need to be educated about the gravity of acid attacks and one of the reason behind them is its easy and cheap availability . These acts not only ruin somebody’s face but their complete life and lives of people connected with them. A trauma of lifetime can be completely avoided if people will stop buying it and the illegal sale will eventually decline.
The end of acid sale will meanwhile help to reduce such incidents but real root cause needs to be handled at core level of homeschooling/parenting and moral educating the children. We need to invest more into educating our boys teaching them to respect women and telling them women are not mere objects to be enslaved but an equal to them in creation and they are in no way better than a female except based on their actions . I would count this offence more on terms of gender inequality as a residue of damaged male ego going down the level to disfigure and destroy identity of opposite sex permanently . The questions :How can you ignore me, How dare you reject me ; perceiving themselves as higher beings are ending up in crime against women. No doubt such perverts are mentally ill but that the little idea which ended up being a big crime in their minds is given from society. The social values that a male child is favored upon female or male is better and a female should be submissive have added fuel to it, all these have to go and replaced by better values to respect women and giving them equal status and freedom to select or reject their partners as men would like to keep for themselves, so we no more have acid attack victims in 21st century.
Looking for a better world and hoping for better future.
