Saving Face

Just like Alex right underneath me, I was shocked by the documentary today. I wasn’t shocked because I didn’t already know how morally low humans could get, but learning about specific situations like these from personal perspectives always surprises me. The filmmakers of this documentary in particular did a great job in making me emotionally invested in these women’s lives. It was painfully easy to see the struggle these women go through with their abusive husbands, who seem to have grown up in a society where their wife is their property. I shared the feelings of the doctor, who admits that he just doesn’t understand why the acid attacks keep happening. The most surprising thing to me was the frequency of acid attacks in particular, as I haven’t heard of it at all in the US, and I can’t believe that husbands even consider completely destroying their wives’ faces and lives a justifiable method of revenge or punishment.

But I am glad that the justice system seemed to be moving in the right direction near the end of the film. At first I was worried because of the proposals of giving the husbands a dose of their own medicine and publicly throwing acid on them. I think this would have only caused more fear and chaos. The imprisonment is a smart choice as it seems as though the husbands did not even consider throwing acid to be a crime, and if at all, a minor one. The life and double life imprisonment charges for this crime give it the gravity it deserves.

also I teared up at the end and I am not ashamed