RIA SHARMA: I think with survivors, the most
intense difficulty that they face is the stigma that they’re subjected to by our own society.
It’s the worst crime that you could commit on someone.
COMM: Acid attacks are a growing problem in India.
It’s estimated there are over 1000 each year. Based in Delhi, Make Love Not Scars
is a Non-Governmental Organisation devoted to helping survivors of these horrific attacks.
COMM: Over the past three years, the organisation
has helped over 60 survivors like Sapna, Mamta, and Basanti, offering legal, financial, and
medical aid, as well as teaching them new skills such as Computing and English. Basanti
has been coming for a year. She was attacked in 2011 and for five years didn’t want to
leave her home.
RIA SHARMA: I told them that we’re getting
laptops last week and they were pretty excited about it. But they don’t know they are here yet.
RIA SHARMA: And we’ll see what their reactions
are like when we give them to them. Exciting.
COMM: Ria founded the NGO when she was just
21 years old. While studying fashion at the Leeds College of Arts in the UK, her life
would take an unexpected turn.
RIA SHARMA: I finally just happened to stumble
across a picture of an acid attack survivor. I took the picture back to my professor and
I told her that it really moved me and she handed me a video camera and said, ‘Go back
to India and shoot a documentary on the subject’. And when I was shooting this documentary,
I realised that there wasn’t a lot of concrete help on the ground, you know, and I knew that
the documentary, once it was released, would help spread a lot of awareness in the west
about this problem that we had in India. But I wasn’t convinced at that moment it was
going to save lives. So, I decided that I would take the name, Make Love Not Scars,
which is the name of my documentary, and turn it in to a fully fledged organisation.
COMM: One of the biggest problems that survivors
face is the way society treats them.
RIA SHARMA: I think an attack is one thing,
but blaming the victim is another whole new ball game. You know, our survivors have stated
that right after the attacks, family members have left them, friends have left them, society
doesn’t want to see them. People won’t employ them because of the way that they look.
So, I think it’s more about the stigma that surrounds acid attacks, that is a very big
factor for the survivors.
COMM: One of Ria’s major campaigns is ‘Skills
Not Scars’, which aims to help survivors back into work.
RIA SHARMA: It started when we released 4
viral videos where survivors were stating their skills. The bigger picture was to launch
the world’s first job portal for acid attack survivors. You go online, you click the survivor
that you want, you look at her skills, you can download her CV, you can hire a survivor
right away, so they can be contributing members of society.
RIA SHARMA: You know, Reshma wants to be a
radio jockey. Archana - receptionist and she makes paper bags. And Sapna wants to be a
multitasker and she can dance. You know, the video CVs actually have helped us spread a
lot of awareness.
COMM: Over the last three years, Ria has seen
the demographic of those she helps change.
RIA SHARMA: It was always the girls, it was
always age 16-25 and it was always a spurned lover. But now over the past three years,
people have started recognising acid as more of a weapon. So, you know, now my youngest
survivor is a 6-month-old baby boy, and my oldest is a 65-year-old woman and in the middle,
we have men and cases that we have dealt with animals. Where in the past, it was used more
of a form of gender-based violence, to put the woman in her place, because we do come
from a male dominated society, but I do want to point out that that is no longer the case
in my opinion.
RIA SHARMA: So, one thing that I would like
to mention is that the Indian justice system is worded very beautifully. And, you know,
the imprisonment times that we have and you know the punishments that we have in place
are absolutely phenomenal. However, the problem is, that there is absolutely no implementation
of the law in our country: whether, it’s jumping a red light and getting a ticket for
that or whether it’s an acid attack. It all comes under the same umbrella for me.
Because at the end of the day, none of my survivors have gotten justice, very few end
up getting justice and it’s years and years and years later.
COMM: While acid attacks remain a problem,
organisations like Make Love Not Scars are helping the survivors get their lives back on track.