Acid attacks: Juliette's story
Juliette dreams of someday marrying a nice man. One unlike the monster who poured acid on her in a jealous rage in July 2007. We are sitting with this young woman, just 19 years old, on a porch near a church in Kampala, Uganda. Juliette is beautiful on the side of her face that she shows to the world. Her eyes are bright and she has a radiant smile. The other side of her face she covers with long braids. It prevents the fearful looks from those who pass her by. It covers the half of her face that was destroyed in the brutal acid attack that sent her to the hospital for five months and disfigured her for life. “I open?” she asks. She lifts her hair to show what remains and tells her story.
Juliette says there are hundreds of women in Kampala who have suffered a similar fate to hers. In the ward where she recovered there were 30. As is often the case, the man who attacked Juliette was never prosecuted, but because of the courageous testimonies of women like Juliette, this most brutal of human rights abuses is being exposed. Juliette walks in the world and hopes people will look past her damaged face and see the beauty inside her. She sings songs that honor God and Africa. She finds comfort in Jesus and her church, in an acid survivors support group and in BeadforLife (www.beadforlife.org), which has taught her to make bead jewelry so she can earn a living and take care of herself and her daughter. Juliette hopes a doctor will help repair the damage from the attack and even dreams she will be married someday. She begs people not to reject victims of acid attacks. And Juliette plans to give back to others too. “In my future, I’d like to help orphanage, lame people, widow. I want to help some of them when I’m somebody, I’m somewhere. I’d like to help to show them they’re still someone. They can do more. They can go somewhere.”
There's a wonderful story about an acid attack survivor at this link: www.boston.com/lifestyle/family/articles/2009/02/14/what_i_saw_was_a_generous_woman_a_talented_beautiful_woman
Maybe you can find a way to share it with Juliette...
Also, just to comment on the reporter's lead in, he says of the attacker: "he may have damaged her beauty..."
I think maybe the qualifier "physical" would have helped to more accurately describe the damage. Clearly, the experience, horrific as it was, has served to enhance Juliette's overall beauty, which has little to do with her physical appearance.
In late January, I posted a brief story, some links and an msnbc video related to the acid attacks on school girls in Afghanistan at this link: www.amazingwomenrock.com/role-models/afghan-girls-scarred-by-acid-defy-terror-embrace-school.html
In the video, the sister of one of the victims, who was partially blinded in the attack says: "You can spray us a thousand times, but we will not stop going to school."
I wonder if I would be so brave...
posted by amazingsusan on 4/24/2009 3:10 pm