Fri May 18, 2012
Photo credit Julien Petit
Four year old Vantha with her mother Chavi
Overcoming a Burning Reality
By Julien Petit, Cambodia with Deborah Bridle-Surprenant – May 2010
Ever since the “accident” when she was blinded by acid that burned her eyes and her face, Chavi relies on her four-year-old daughter, Vantha to be her eyes. Even at such a young age Vantha, who also has burns on her face, senses just how much her mother needs her now.
Both are survivors of what is becoming a fact of life in Cambodia – a country still struggling to heal from the genocide carried out by the Pol Pot regime – Chavi and Vantha have taken refuge with the NGO Cambodian Acid Survivors Charity (CASC) where they and others who have been victimized by such brutal attacks receive care. In the yard of the CASC sheltered in the shade of a tree, Chavi holds her daughter’s hand tight, remembering.
“I had received a call from a stranger, asking me to go meet him in front of an ironworks […],” Chavi said. “A voice called me. I turned around and someone threw acid in my face. I couldn’t see who it was.”
Cambodia is one of five countries where these kinds of attacks are prevalent. Over the last 10 years, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO) has registered 127 attacks and a total of 208 victims – of which 112 of are male and 96 female.
South Asia is the most affected region in the world and, while victims are predominantly young women in Pakistan and Bangladesh, this type of violence has also been directed against men in Cambodia.
CASC’s director, Chunn Chenda Sophea describes this dehumanizing violence that causes long term physical, emotional and economic suffering, premeditated. “You don’t attack someone with acid on a whim,” she said. “You have to go and buy the acid, bargain, bring it home, keep it, know your victim’s schedule, wait for him or her, and sometimes hire people for the attack.”
That was the case with the attack of the karaoke video actress, Tat Marina. It is alleged that Marina was sprayed with more than a litre of nitric acid at a market by the wife of a high-ranking member of the Cambodian government in 1999. While her attackers have not been apprehended, Marina has fled the country for fear of retaliation and is in the U.S. undergoing additional surgeries.
Acid attacks are considered a crime in Cambodia however, most attackers are merely fined. In Bangladesh attackers are condemned to death.
A litre of acid costs less than one dollar –cheaper than bullets. According to local NGOs, the media coverage concerning the attack against Tat Marina actually increased the number of acid attacks 10 fold.
Chunn Chenda Sophea said the motives behind these kinds of vicious attacks have become more varied. “Nine percent of the attacks concern love affairs, 10% accidents. However, 49% of the victims don’t know why they were attacked. The other cases concern disputes over lands, over business, etc. […] Cambodia is a country already traumatized by the Pol Pot era. [After] 30 years of war and death, violence has been trivialized in the mores of the people.”
Mrs. Tong Kham, another victim at the centre, said she had gone to buy fish on a December morning in 1990 when a woman threw acid at another customer in the market. An unintentional victim, Mrs Tong Kham’s entire right side of her body got burnt. In the ensuing confusion, people at the market thought there was a grenade attack. Memories from the war and collective trauma remain vivid in Cambodians’ minds. Everyone panicked and no one helped Ms. Tong Kham.
Later at the hospital, the target of the attack, a Vietnamese woman who was severely burnt, went to Mrs. Tong Kham’s bedside and, with her hands joined together, asked for her forgiveness.
Acid attacks are not intended to kill but rather cause the victims enormous suffering. Most victims lose everything – their homes, their money, (which is used to pay medical expenses) and often they are shunned by members of their families and so feel compelled to live elsewhere.
Survivors feel dead inside and dehumanised. Psychological wounds add to the physical ones and most victims have problems concentrating. Others have serious nervous breakdowns. Some even take their own lives – as the idea of life is more painful than that of death.
For Mrs. Tong Kham, work keeps her going. A former nurse and mother of a large family, she is used to caring for others. She now works as a cook at CASC and takes care of her second family, the “survivors”.
Mrs. Sophea, director of the centre, would like the very energetic Mrs. Tong Kham to rest a little bit more – for her health’s sake. But the cook often replies: “I fought to survive the civil war, I fought to survive the Pol Pot era, and today I fight to live normally. Life is a fight.”
Mrs. Tong represented Cambodia at an international conference in May, 2009 in Bangladesh where acid victims spoke before delegations from India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Uganda. She likes to read the speech she gave that day. She believes she achieved something meaningful. She was not judged – she was acknowledged.
While being permanently marred, victims need medical care and more importantly human contact to help them learn how they can live again.
CASC holds monthly meetings to help victims reintegrate into society. First and foremost is the importance of dialogue at these meetings. NGOs also help teach victims new skills for job opportunities so they can enjoy a future in which they can live independently.
At one meeting where survivors were being taught new organic agricultural techniques, Ms. Sophea said, “In the long term, I would like to create a village where victims only would live together. They could labour the earth for themselves, sell their produce, and no longer be scared to leave their home and face the staring of other people.”
Mr. Bunn, a stocky man in his thirties with dark hair, used to go out a lot with his friends to karaoke bars, where alcohol and girls made fine bedfellows. His wife, jealous and worried that all the household money was being drunken away, wanted to find a way to put an end to her husband’s meanderings.
When she threw a litre of acid in his face, she did not think he would go blind and lose his job. Nor did she anticipate that her actions, meant to protect her family, would cause a catastrophe.
Today however, husband and wife sit together in the yard of the CASC. “Yes, we still love each other.” And Bunn’s wife adds “but if you start seeing other girls, I’ll do it again,” She shares a laugh with her husband. For them, faults lie on both sides, so the case is closed.
Mrs. Bunn usually stays with her husband as long as she can. Bunn Narith is often sitting in his bed, with an old radio receiver playing the hits of Sin Sisamuth, one of Cambodia’s most famous pre-war singers. He takes singing lessons offered by the CASC and Sin Sisamuth’s son’s school, hoping that one day he can sing his idol’s songs with an orchestra.
Before he was executed by the Khmer Rouge, Sin Sisamuth is said to have asked for the right to sing one last song. This request serves as an inspiration to Bunn Narith who wants to live the way Sin Sisamuth died – singing. As Bunn Narith tells himself,“Sin Sisamuth sings life.”
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