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A30 world news
Diabierna 11 Februari 2022

Survivors of acid attacks in Mexico unite to push for change

wanting to dissolve a person physi- organization’s director.
cally and psychologically. It is always
premeditated, according to the Unit- Sayuri Herrera, Mexico City’s spe-
ed Nations. cial prosecutor for femicides, said
that more acid attacks are being reg-
In Xolalpa’s case, she was tied to a istered in Mexico. Her office is cur-
post. The acid dissolved the ropes, rently reviewing older cases that were
but also her clothes and her body as originally classified as serious injuries
she ran half-naked for help. She has to see if they can be reclassified as at-
had 40 surgeries to repair her body. tempted femicide like Xolalpa’s.

Carmen Sánchez, who started the Only two of Mexico’s 32 states have
foundation that bears her name, was classified acid attacks on women as
eating breakfast with her mother and attempted femicide. Violence against
sisters at home in 2014 when her women in Mexico extends far beyond
partner entered and threw acid on acid attacks making it more difficult
her face. He fled with a driver who to gain attention.
was waiting outside as Sánchez’s
(AP) — Elisa Xolalpa has had you’re ugly, Mom, and it’s not true,” chin melted to her chest and her cell In the first half of the year, 1,879
three daughters and found a job Xolalpa said her daughter told her. phone dissolved in her hand. women were murdered in Mexico
she enjoys since a former boy- and ore than 33,000 injured, accord-
friend tried to destroy her life by Xolalpa has a sweet gaze. She enjoys It took years before Sánchez turned ing to federal government data. More
tossing acid on her when she was growing flowers in the chinampas — to activism. than 10,000 rapes were reported and
18. Two decades later, she is still fertile islands interlaced by canals in nearly 24,000 cases of domestic vio-
seeking justice. the capital’s Xochimilco borough — Sánchez made it clear to the lawmak- lence.
like her ancestors did. She recognizes ers that women like her face not only
Survivors of acid attacks like Xolalpa that one day she will have to explain violence from their aggressors, but “They consider us their property and
are banding together and raising their to her three daughters, product of also the “indifference and impunity act under the reasoning that ‘if you’re
voices in Mexico despite the coun- another relationship, the attack that of the state, revictimization by the not going to be mine, you’re not go-
try’s high rates of violence, which changed her life and for a time left media and social and labor exclusion ing to be anyone’s,’” Herrera said.
often targets women, and staggering her wanting to die. and discrimination.”
levels of impunity. Ximena Canseco, a co-founder of
These days she is focused on prepar- There are children and men among the Carmen Sánchez Foundation,
Earlier this year, the Carmen Sánchez ing herself mentally for a new court the victims of acid attacks, but 80% recalled one day, July 29, when they
Foundation formed here to provide hearing for her attacker, who was are women, according to The Acid learned of a survivor from an attack
support and lobby for legal reforms finally arrested in February. She has Survivors Trust International (ASTI). 30 years ago and they found a message
for survivors of acid attacks. It has made three complaints to authorities asking for help on Facebook from the
registered 29 such attacks so far, five and suffered constant threats from They are usually attacked by partners mother of a girl who had just had
already in 2021, but believes that is him. For now he only faces a domes- or former partners or people paid by acid tossed on her from someone on
only a fraction of the real number. tic violence charge, but Xolalpa hopes them out of jealousy or revenge, ac- a passing motorcycle. That same day,
that will hold him long enough to cording to U.N. Women, the United Canseco learned a 30-year-old wom-
Survivors want the attacks classified as pursue an attempted femicide charge. Nations’ gender equality entity. an who had recently shared her story
attempted femicide, aid with the in- Her attacker’s lawyer has been dis- had died of COVID-19.
numerable surgeries that follow and missive. “He says I’m alright because ASTI documents about 1,500 acid at-
psychological support. They want to I was able to have a family,” she said tacks per year, but says the real num- Xolalpa said we can’t allow the vio-
be seen even though their faces hurt. indignantly. She entered the rela- ber could be higher. lence to be normalized and that’s
“Mom, what is acid?” 9-year-old tionship with the father of her three a message she wants to teach her
Daniela asked Xolalpa one day. For a daughters “to feel that I could please Acid attacks aren’t limited to any par- daughters.
moment Xolalpa was silent. Then she someone despite the scars,” Xolapa ticular part of the world, certain reli-
told her daughter that it was a liquid said. “It was a mistake, I’m still dam- gions or cultures, but rather to con- “I have to turn this pain into some-
they used in the greenhouse that is aged.” servative institutions and “the deep thing else,” she said. For now, that
dangerous. Another day Daniela left economic and social inequalities of means demanding justice and not be-
school in tears. “Some kids told me Dousing someone in acid means gender that exist,” said Jaf Shah, the ing silent.

Adrift after enslavement, Yazidi teen says she can’t go home

(AP) — Roza Barakat’s Now, at 18, she speaks little ing.
tormentors have been de- of her native Kurdish dialect,
feated, but the horrors she Kurmanji. For years, her IS captors told
endured still hold her cap- her she would never be ac-
tive. With the defeat of IS in 2019, cepted if she returned. “I be-
Barakat slipped into the shad- lieved them,” she said.
She was 11 years old when ows, opting to hide in the tur-
she was captured and en- moil that followed the worst Barakat’s tale, corroborated
slaved by the Islamic State of the battles. As IS fighters by Yazidi and Syrian Kurdish
group, along with thousands were arrested, their wives officials, is a window into the
of other Yazidi women and and children were packed complicated realities faced
girls taken when the militants into detention camps. Bara- by many Yazidi women who
overran northern Iraq in their kat was free, but she couldn’t came of age under the bru-
brutal 2014 campaign. go home. tal rule of IS. Traumatized
and lost, many struggle to
Torn from her family in the “I don’t know how I’ll face come to terms with the past,
town of Sinjar, the enclave of my community,” she told while the Yazidi community
the ancient religious Yazidi The Associated Press, speak- is at odds over how to accept
minority, she was taken to ing in Arabic, as she nervous- them. gave birth at 13?” said Fa- Syria. “After so much shock
Syria, sold multiple times and ly played with the ends of her ruk Tuzu, co-chair of Yazidi and abuse they don’t believe
repeatedly raped. She bore a long dark braid, the red pol- “What do you expect from House, an umbrella of Yazidi in anything anymore, they
child, a boy she has since lost. ish on her dainty fingers fad- a child who was raped at 12, organizations in northeastern don’t belong anywhere.”