Learning to smile again

They are innocent victims of brutality, but now there is hope for women of Pakistan scarred and disfigured by vicious acid attacks, Taghred Chandab and Paula Bronstein write.

Dressed in a beautiful sari and Islamic head dress, Iram Saeed appears to be just like any other Pakistani woman.

For a moment she is able to conceal the pain and scars from gazing eyes. Then she removes her heavy clothing and dark sunglasses, revealing devastation.

Ten years ago, aged 19, Iram was the victim of an acid attack. Her crime? To reject a marriage proposal.

"It was very difficult for me to digest," she says from Islamabad. "I have been fighting with myself but I must go on. No matter what the punishment the criminal gets it is no compensation for me."

Iram required 25 operations, and lost her left eye.

Her story is not uncommon, particularly in rural Pakistan, where women have few rights and no education. Nor is the punishment meted out to her, warranting the existence of the Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF).

Victims are usually young women in their teens, who are alleged to have brought shame onto their family for rejecting a marriage - often arranged - or unwanted sexual advances.

Their burns, while horrific, rarely kill, instead leaving them seriously disfigured and confined to their homes, leading to social isolation and depression.

In 2006, after seven years of research, the ASF issued its first report into attacks by acid, which is cheap and readily available in Pakistan.

In the four years after 1999, the ASF had to deal with an alarmingly high number of attacks. Rates began to fall in 2003, thanks to local international education campaigns, rallies during International Women's Day to raise awareness, the support of human rights organisations and the United Nations and, importantly, by victims speaking out.

And yet, shockingly, more than one incident is reported every two days.

Dressed in a yellow sari which reveals her scarred body, Mumtaz Mai proudly cradles her nine-day-old daughter Fatima.

The 38-year-old, who lives in Basti Dollay Wali, a village in Punjab in Pakistan, was attacked in the middle of the night by an unknown person.

Like many woman living in small villages, she was working in the fields to help support her family. Her attacker has never been caught.

"I have my family but lost my beauty," she says.

Saira Liaqat, 22, disguises the pain of being stripped of her youth and beauty with a beautiful smile. At 18, Saira, of Lahore, was caught up in a family argument over an arranged marriage. She was deemed an unsuitable wife after her soon to be sister-in-law convinced her brother that she was not the right woman for him and that the family could not afford the money to carry out the pre-marriage ceremony.