March 8th, 2008
Shaping Progress: Crime Against Women
Pullitzer Prize winning photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair’s photo, simply referred to as “Pakistan ,” (see below) was published, along with several other photos of women of the world, by notable women photographers in an article called “What a Woman Sees” by Julia Savacool. The article ran in the September 2005 issue of Marie Claire.
The photo is one of many which depict women who routinely endure hardships, abuse, injustice, poverty and hopelessness in societies which seldom give them the same consideration as their male counterparts. The article was part of a growing worldwide movement to save such women from the fates for which they seem to have been born. A movement that I am reminded of on International Women’s Day.
The woman in the photo is then thirty-year-old Azra. Sinclair encountered the Pakistani woman during a visit to a shelter for women who are victims of abuse - primarily at the hands of their husbands or in-laws. Azra was the victim of a ferocious attack by her brother-in-law. She was ashamed to show her face, much of it destroyed by an acid attack. Women like Azra are not an anomaly. According to Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific Regional Office, savage incidents of acid being thrown in the faces of women are quite frequent in Pakistan and the police seem reluctant to help victims get justice from their attackers who are usually family members.
When I saw Azra’s picture nearly three years ago, I was struck by the fact that the woman, her face in particular, fill the photo, yet we see very little of the woman, or her face. I was drawn to the subject’s eye, and to the single, glistening tear that formed underneath. Her gaze touched my soul. I could feel her pain and I knew that she had something important to say.
I am devastated by the pain of this woman and the thousands of women just like her, caught up in the firestorm of domestic violence. These women routinely suffer violence at the hands of family members – husbands, brothers, fathers and even mothers-in-law. It is this same compassion that led Sinclair to snap the photo of this woman, whose life had forever been changed, to raise awareness of the abuse women around the world suffer in societies where they are considered worth little more than property.
Sinclair’s photo of Azra appropriately centers around her pleading eye, and the single tear she sheds for herself and other victims of domestic violence both present and future.
On International Women’s Day I am reminded of the great things women have accomplished in the past century. We are CEOs, business owners, and candidates for President of the most powerful nation in the free world. Yet, as long as women anywhere in the world suffer a fate like Azra’s, we are all worse for it.
