The 33-year-old former dancing girl — who
was allegedly attacked by her then-husband,
an ex-parliamentarian and son of a political
powerhouse — jumped from the sixth floor
of a building in Rome, where she had been
living and receiving treatment.
Her March 17 suicide and the return of her
body to Pakistan on Sunday reignited furor
over the case, which received significant
international attention at the time of the
attack. Her death came less than a month
after a Pakistani filmmaker won the
country's first Oscar for a documentary
about acid attack victims.
Younus' story not only drives home the
woeful plight of many women in
conservative Muslim Pakistan, it is also a
reminder of how the country's rich and
powerful operate with impunity. Younus'
ex-husband, Bilal Khar, was eventually
acquitted, but many believe he used his
connections to escape the law's grip — a
common occurrence in Pakistan.
More than 8,500 acid attacks, forced
marriages and other forms of violence
against women were reported in Pakistan in
2011, according to The Aurat Foundation, a
women's rights organization. Because the
group relied mostly on media reports, the
figure is likely an undercount.
"The saddest part is that she realized that
the system in Pakistan was never going to
provide her with relief or remedy," Nayyar
Shabana Kiyani, an activist at The Aurat
Foundation, said of Younus. "She was totally
disappointed that there was no justice
available to her."
Younus was a teenage dancing girl working
in the red light district of the southern city
of Karachi when she met her future
husband, the son of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a
former governor of Pakistan's largest
province, Punjab. The unusual pairing was
the younger Khar's third marriage. He was
in his mid-30s at the time.
The couple was married for three years, but
Younus eventually left him because he
allegedly physically and verbally abused her.
She claimed that he came to her mother's
house while she was sleeping in May 2000
and poured acid all over her in the presence
of her 5-year-old son from a different man.
Tehmina Durrani, Ghulam Mustafa Khar's ex-
wife and his son's stepmother, became an
advocate for Younus after the attack,
drawing international attention to the case.
She said that Younus' injuries were the
worst she had ever seen on an acid attack
victim.
"So many times we thought she would die
in the night because her nose was melted
and she couldn't breathe," said Durrani, who
wrote a book about her own allegedly
abusive relationship with the elder Khar.
"We used to put a straw in the little bit of
her mouth that was left because the rest
was all melted together."
She said Younus, whose life had always
been hard, became a liability to her family,
for whom she was once a source of income.
"Her life was a parched stretch of hard rock
on which nothing bloomed," Durrani wrote
in a column in The News after Younus'
suicide.
Younus' ex-husband grew up in starkly
different circumstances, amid the wealth
and power of the country's feudal elite, and
counts Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina
Rabbani Khar as a cousin.
Bilal Khar once again denied carrying out
the acid attack in a TV interview following
her suicide, suggesting a different man with
the same name committed the crime. He
claimed Younus killed herself because she
didn't have enough money, not because of
her horrific injuries, and criticized the media
for hounding him about the issue.
"You people should be a little considerate,"
said Khar. "I have three daughters and when
they go to school people tease them."
Younus was energized when the Pakistani
government enacted a new set of laws last
year that explicitly criminalized acid attacks
and mandated that convicted attackers
would serve a minimum sentence of 14
years, said Durrani. She hoped to return
someday to get justice once her health
stabilized.
"She said, 'When I come back, I will reopen
the case, and I'll fight myself,' and she was a
fighter," Durrani said.
Durrani had to battle with both Younus' ex-
husband and the government to send her to
Italy, where the Italian government paid for
her treatment and provided her money to
live on and send her child to school.
Pakistani officials argued that sending
Younus to Italy would give the country a bad
name, Durrani said.
Younus was happy when Sharmeen Obaid-
Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary
about acid attack victims in February, but
was worried about being forgotten since
she wasn't profiled in the film, said Durrani.
Durrani said Younus' case should be a
reminder that the Pakistani government
needs to do much more to prevent acid
attacks and other forms of violence against
women, and also help the victims.
"I think this whole country should be
extremely embarrassed that a foreign
country took responsibility for a Pakistani
citizen for 13 years because we could give
her nothing, not justice, not security," said
Durrani.
No comments:
Post a Comment