Pakistani Women's Lives Destroyed By Acid Attacks

[Conley]

Campaigners in Pakistan say cases of acid attacks are increasing in most areas, even though tougher penalties were introduced last year. An Oscar-winning Pakistani documentary has put the crime under the spotlight, but it is estimated that more than 150 women have acid thrown on them every year - usually by husbands or in-laws - and many never get justice. The BBC's Orla Guerin reports.

Her name is Shama, meaning "candle", and she says her husband burnt her flesh as if it was a candlewick.

The young mother of four has just joined the ranks of Pakistani women doused in acid. She is scarred for life, with burns on 15% of her body. Her crime was her beauty.

"My husband and I often had arguments in the house," she said, in her hospital bed. "On that day before going to sleep he said 'you take too much pride in your beauty'. Then in the middle of the night he threw acid on me, and ran away."

When her husband fled, he took her mobile phone with him, so she could not call for help.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17676542

How awful is this...and how can Westerners ever change a society where this kind of behavior is acceptable to many? If people in Pakistan don't realize how sick this is, then what hope is there for their society? There are cultural differences and then there are issues like this which should be obviously wrong to anyone with a shred of decency.

[MMC]

http://ts2.mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx?q=4726895513438745&id=c3395ffb6f0e7cbb6977d51865f65c29&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.worldnewsinn.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2011%2f08%2fthe-godfather-brando.jpg

Well.....I would be willing to have a little talk with them. For a small fee and a favor in the future of time. :wink: :grin:

[annata]

Campaigners in Pakistan say cases of acid attacks are increasing in most areas, even though tougher penalties were introduced last year. An Oscar-winning Pakistani documentary has put the crime under the spotlight, but it is estimated that more than 150 women have acid thrown on them every year - usually by husbands or in-laws - and many never get justice. The BBC's Orla Guerin reports.

Her name is Shama, meaning "candle", and she says her husband burnt her flesh as if it was a candlewick.

The young mother of four has just joined the ranks of Pakistani women doused in acid. She is scarred for life, with burns on 15% of her body. Her crime was her beauty.

"My husband and I often had arguments in the house," she said, in her hospital bed. "On that day before going to sleep he said 'you take too much pride in your beauty'. Then in the middle of the night he threw acid on me, and ran away."

When her husband fled, he took her mobile phone with him, so she could not call for help.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17676542

How awful is this...and how can Westerners ever change a society where this kind of behavior is acceptable to many? If people in Pakistan don't realize how sick this is, then what hope is there for their society? There are cultural differences and then there are issues like this which should be obviously wrong to anyone with a shred of decency.It's not our call, our society does sick stuff too.
i'm not trying to compare "us v them", just that OUR best interests would be to leave, and let them run their society.

I think we've done enough in the way of intervening. It's gotten the US nowhere, and Paki is a mixture of fundamentalists, and less so.
just get out. there is nothing we can do about this, thouigh i understand the anguish, it's not our call.

[dadakarma]

A culture steeped in religious idiocy and, in this case, extremism.

Westerners can't change it and should stop trying to. Westerners have their own brand of religious idiocy.

[Conley]

I agree with both of you - we should get out.

Annata, my point with the section you highlighted was that it was foolish of our leaders to have thought nation building there ever stood a chance. I'm certainly not in support of that kind of military action for many reasons.

[Peter1469]

How much of this is based on Islam and how much is based off their tribal culture? Does Islam feed off the older tribal culture?

[dadakarma]

How much of this is based on Islam and how much is based off their tribal culture? Does Islam feed off the older tribal culture?

Of course it does.

[Conley]

How much of this is based on Islam and how much is based off their tribal culture? Does Islam feed off the older tribal culture?

I would say a significant amount is based on Islam. If only it were limited to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Women are treated as sub-human in many Islamic societies.

[annata]

I agree with both of you - we should get out.

Annata, my point with the section you highlighted was that it was foolish of our leaders to have thought nation building there ever stood a chance. I'm certainly not in support of that kind of military action for many reasons.It doesn't work, Iraq doesn't want our "help" after we tore apart their society, and basically made Iraq a colony of Iran.

Sometimes a dictor ( like Gaddafi) is a better "fit" for a society/nationstate .
Libya had one of the highest standards of living, everyone was guaranteed a house, and the "Great man made river" was completed under Gaddafi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Manmade_River#History



In 1953, efforts to find oil (http://thepoliticalforums.com/wiki/Petroleum) in southern Libya led to the discovery of large quantities of fresh water underground. The Great Man-made River Project (GMRP) was conceived in the late 1960s and work on the project began in 1984. The project's construction was divided into five phases. The first phase required 85 million m³ of excavation and was inaugurated on 28 August 1991. The second phase (dubbed First water to Tripoli) was inaugurated on 1 September 1996.
The project is owned by the Great Man-Made River Project Authority and funded by the Gaddafi government. Brown & Root (http://thepoliticalforums.com/wiki/KBR_(company)) and Price Brothers were responsible for the original design, and the primary contractor for the first phases was Dong Ah Consortium and the present main contractor is Al Nahr Company Ltd. This company was registered in England and Wales (http://thepoliticalforums.com/wiki/England_and_Wales) as a foreign company FC017848 until 31 July 2003.
The imported goods from several countries worldwide (such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, etc.) destined to the construction of the GMR arrived by sea via the entry port of Brega (http://thepoliticalforums.com/wiki/Brega) (Gulf of Sidra (http://thepoliticalforums.com/wiki/Gulf_of_Sidra)).
The total cost of the project is projected at more than US$ (http://thepoliticalforums.com/wiki/US_dollar)25 billion. Libya claims to have completed the work to date without the financial support of major countries or loans from world banks. Since 1990 UNESCO (http://thepoliticalforums.com/wiki/UNESCO) has provided training to engineers and technicians involved with the project.

the pipeline factory was blown up by US/Nato because there were reports of munition dump there.

Check out what has happened to Libya http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/garcia150412.html
Migrant Workers in Post-Gaddafi Libya
by Aissa Garcia
In Libya after Muammar Gaddafi, the situation of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa is worsening. Most of them had come to this rich African country looking for jobs. Now, thousands of them are arrested and taken to detention centers, where they are targeted for abuse by their captors, most of whom are illegal armed groups

__________________________________________________ _________________________________
There's plenty more horor stories, plus the MANPADS,and Stingers went missing. I could write a whole thread on this, but goggle it,,and you can see the place is in ruins, leadersless, and militias rundifferent parts of the country.
http://www.geekswithguns.com/2012/04/5k-libyan-manpads-secured-some-may-have-been-smuggled-out/
Libyan MANPADS Secured Some May Have Been Smuggled Outhttp://www.geekswithguns.com/wp-content/weapons.gif (http://www.geekswithguns.com/wp-content/weapons.gif)A multinational team of weapons experts has secured and destroyed 5,000 Libyan man-operated portable air defense systems and components left over after the fall of the Gadhafi regime, according to the British Ministry of Defence. The team has been unable to rule out the possibility that a number of the weapons may have leaked out of the country or been acquired by terrorists.
“The team has concluded that most remaining MANPADS are likely to be under the control of regional military councils and militias,” the British said, adding that they were helping fund the Libyan authorities and the U.N. implementation of a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration program to bring the remaining systems back under the control of the central government.
A joint military-civilian team made up of U.K., French, U.S. and Libyan personnel have been in country since last August helping to track down the large numbers of weapons left by Gadhafi’s regime.
The U.S. government estimates Gadhafi’s forces had about 20,000 MANPADS in their armory at the time of the regime’s collapse, raising fears that the weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist organizations

[dadakarma]

I would say a significant amount is based on Islam. If only it were limited to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Women are treated as sub-human in many Islamic societies.

Plenty of muslims reside in the United States and are westernized culturally. They don't practice or ascribe to this savagery. Any religiosity can be morphed to extremism when implemented by tribal society.

[Conley]

Plenty of muslims reside in the United States and are westernized culturally. They don't practice or ascribe to this savagery. Any religiosity can be morphed to extremism when implemented by tribal society.

This is all true. There are millions of Muslims all over the world who don't practice this barbarism.

[Conley]

Certainly, the situation in Libya has been a major cluster. Migrant workers are abused throughout the Middle East, it is yet another ongoing tragedy in that part of the world that we don't hear much about here in the US.

[annata]

Islamic/tribal/cultural - i really see no difference in our relations with Paki, in that it doesn't matter WHY they run their society that way;
anymore than why Afgan is a feudal society ( or darn close).
It's not our business to go around the world and war/ "make it better".

This is where Obama and Romney are the same -they both buy into "American Exceptionalism", the neocons never left, they just took over Obama's mind.

Screw Obomber, fergit Romney ( he has no clue). When I find a party like the Greens, that understand "just say no to foreign wars", that's where i vote.

[Conley]

I agree with not starting wars to 'make things better', but I do want our government standing up to human rights abuses such as these. Certainly our own country has room for a lot of improvement, but we can't condone nor turn a blind eye to this sort of thing. It is absolutely abhorrent.

[dadakarma]

Islamic/tribal/cultural - i really see no difference in our relations with Paki, in that it doesn't matter WHY they run their society that way;
anymore than why Afgan is a feudal society ( or darn close).
It's not our business to go around the world and war/ "make it better".

This is where Obama and Romney are the same -they both buy into "American Exceptionalism", the neocons never left, they just took over Obama's mind.

Screw Obomber, fergit Romney ( he has no clue). When I find a party like the Greens, that understand "just say no to foreign wars", that's where i vote.

No, they use the exceptionalism argument in order to sell the real agenda to the American people.

Middle eastern geopolitics and the 'problem' of oppression on Pakistan women or elsewhere in the region only matters to the U.S. because of oil resources and control. You don't see our current or any past presidents launching an urgent 'nation-building' adventures where oil or other coveted commodities are nonexistent, do you?

Remember Bush's horseshit about Saddam gassing his own people? Oh, the horror - we need to get the bad guy who's mean....

Idiots in this country actually bought that nonsense.

[annata]

I agree with not starting wars to 'make things better', but I do want our government standing up to human rights abuses such as these. Certainly our own country has room for a lot of improvement, but we can't condone nor turn a blind eye to this sort of thing. It is absolutely abhorrent.
well what what you do about it?? My answer is LEAVE-since it's really not our business. do you have any ideas on how to change a society -half way across the globe that already despises us for the constant droning?

Can we change Afganistan?? Did we heal the rifts in Iraq from Shiites and Shiia in Iraq? Can we stop Syrian Slaughter?

Is it even our business to attempt such?

I admire your compassion, but sometimes the best course of action is to stay out of other countires internal affairs.

[Conley]

I'm not saying we can change it or that we should bomb the crap out of them. Certainly change can be effected through diplomatic and economic means. There is a middle road - one which I wish we would follow - between occupation and ignoring human rights abuses. Of course, as Dada suggests, that will never the case as long as we continue to be so dependent on oil.

[annata]

No, they use the exceptionalism argument in order to sell the real agenda to the American people.

Middle eastern geopolitics and the 'problem' of oppression on Pakistan women or elsewhere in the region only matters to the U.S. because of oil resources and control. You don't see our current or any past presidents launching an urgent 'nation-building' adventures where oil or other coveted commodities are nonexistent, do you?

Remember Bush's horseshit about Saddam gassing his own people? Oh, the horror - we need to get the bad guy who's mean....

Idiots in this country actually bought that nonsense. 115( pipelinistan)

[annata]

I'm not saying we can change it or that we should bomb the crap out of them. Certainly change can be effected through diplomatic and economic means. There is a middle road - one which I wish we would follow - between occupation and ignoring human rights abuses. Of course, as Dada suggests, that will never the case as long as we continue to be so dependent on oil.
My friend; i'm always about looking for the Middle Path - but since we're already unwelcome there, and have warred, and pretty much worn out our welcome -even with the bribe money we pay the ISI, maybe it's best to let this instance go.

[dadakarma]

115( pipelinistan)

bingo

[Mister D]

A culture steeped in religious idiocy and, in this case, extremism.

Westerners can't change it and should stop trying to. Westerners have their own brand of religious idiocy.

Yes, it's called progressivism. :smiley:

[Mister D]

I would say a significant amount is based on Islam. If only it were limited to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Women are treated as sub-human in many Islamic societies.

Just wait though. We have just started our war on women. We have just begun to fight!

[Mister D]

Plenty of muslims reside in the United States and are westernized culturally. They don't practice or ascribe to this savagery. Any religiosity can be morphed to extremism when implemented by tribal society.

If by "westernized culturally" you mean subscribing to the economic reductionism of liberal societies and buying lots of crap they don't need than, yes, I agree.

[roadmaster]

The only people that can help them is themselves. Just like Mexico, their army should go after the ones killing innocent people in their lands. We have our own problems, not saying I don't care but you can't change people who don't want to. The US needs to stay out of civil wars period.

[maheenangel74]

why do we care?

[Captain Obvious]

I missed this thread - why is it all the rage in other cultures to throw acid on peoples faces? You see this fairly often, it's bizarre.