Life in the Darkness

Notice: This story was written on January 2011, but it has never been published or posted in my blog.

By Tivea Koam

On a Thursday morning, the beautiful sound of organ music is chanting under a wooden house where the organ player stays. With his hands feeling the keyboards of his newly-bought organ, Som Bunnarith, a survivor of acid attack is playing the organ for his friend to sing and practicing his skill training in an organization in Kandal province.

Cambodian acid victims in an organization

With only one left ear and scar on his face, right arm, and body, a 41-year-old Som Bunnarith in his clean dress and dark glasses covering his horrible scarring and blind eyes, is one of the acid victims who is always discriminated by people in the society due to his blindness and permanent scarring of the face and body.

Som Bunnarith said that the way he looks now, a handicap man with terrible face makes people discriminated him. “When I was taking bus to Pursat province [his homeland], I talked and asked people sitting nearby ‘where are we now?’ No one answered me nor paid attention to me because of my disability and ugly face damaged by acid,” he said.

Five years ago, Som Bunnarith was doused with acid by his wife due to her jealousy of him having girls and his many late nights out. He recalls that immediately after the incident, he felt really regretful and sorry for what had happened. “My future will end today. My life will end soon,” he said that was what he told himself after being taken to hospital.

After treatment at a hospital in Battambang province, he went home with his wife, who also was affected by acid, for she stood too closed to him when dousing. With his burnt body and face as well as his partially blind eyes, he said that he felt very disappointed and hurt when young kids saw him and cried and said that his face looked like a ghost while his close friends avoided him.

With his bachelor degree in Marketing as well as association degree in English Literature, Som Bunnarith had worked for many companies including Coca Cola Company as a sale supervision region in Pursat province, but after his incident, he lost his job because of his blindness.

Som Bunnarith rarely went anywhere and stayed at home for three years after the attack owing to discrimination and ignorance in society. With hurt and bad feeling, he sometimes slept for only one hour a day; he did not eat food regularly; and these made him unable to walk and have more illness: stomach ache and bladder problems.

He said he told himself that “if I stay like this, I will definitely end soon, and my life will be more miserable than now,” adding that he decided to come to Phnom Penh to live in Cambodia Acid Survivor Charity (CASC) where he had visited for the last three years for treatment.

Since establishment of CASC, the organization working with survivors of acid attacks in March 2006, it has helped about 303 acid victims according to Horng Lairapo, chief of program unit and chief of legal unit at CASC.  He added that there are many reasons causing acid attacks.

“Jealousy between wife and mistress or love triangle, business problem, and unintentional accidents are the major cause of acid attacks,” Horng Lairapo said.

Hout Sophorn, a social worker at CASC said that acid victims are severely affected both physically and mentally. “Their feeling was seriously hurt and their beauty was lost,” she said, adding that some people discriminate against them and do not value them.

“They are acid victims living in poor condition with discrimination from society,” she said, “they cannot work like before to support their life, that’s why we provide skills training for them.”

CASC has offered free medical and legal aid, counseling, and skills training to acid victim. Nowadays there are about 12 survivor of acid attack living permanently in CASC for support.  They can learn skills like knitting bag, tailor, farming, and music.

Som Bunnarith has been living in CASC for nearly two years. He receives skill training in music. He had learned how to sing for six months at Sin Sisamuth Association which teaches how to sing and play musical instrument. After that, he has continued learning how to play the organ for nearly one year now at the organization and he can play around 40 musical songs with his organ.

On November 6 last year, he was invited to sing in Monsne Somneang concert, a TV Show at Cambodia Television Network (CTN) and the Prime Minister Hun Sen gave him $1,000 dollars which helped him to buy his new organ.

He said that he felt really happy to own his new organ and he would practice it to be skillful. Hence, he will be able to initiate a band for disable people like his friends and him to play concert in any resorts where national and local tourists come and he will be able to earn money to support him and his family not just wait for help from the organization. That’s what he hopes to do with his skills training.

“Asking for help and support from organization is not easy since they help us in a limited resource. I do not want to live my life just depending on someone’s money and asking them for aid all the times. Even though I am blind, I want to use my ability to earn money,” he said, adding that the requirement of money he wants is getting bigger and bigger since his three children are growing older now.

Som Bunnarith has a long term vision about his life in the future though he is an invisible man. He bravely said that he does not care about people’s discrimination against him after coming to live in CASC and getting music skills to entertain him whenever he feels bored.

With fast recovering from mentally hurt, confidence, knowledge, and experience he had, in February 2010 Som Bunnarith was employed by CASC as a counselor working to talk and discuss mental problems with other acid victims living both in organization and outside organization.

Working with different acid attacks for ten months, he said that if the male victim lost his eyes, he will feel pessimistic about life.

“While female victim feels seriously hurt if she is doused with even a little acid since woman loves beauty, and she fears that she will not have husband or kids,” he said.

He added that men thought “if they have money, they will be able to find any girls,” so he focuses mainly on women. “I told them that you should let those bad images go away and let think about your health. You should treat those things as a night mare,” he said, but still “some girls go to bathroom and cry when they see themselves in the mirror.”

Som Bunnarith said that he also told them that we are acid victims; we have to stand up and decide what we want to do in the future. “We lost our beauty, but we still have chance to choose skill training. We are disable people, but our mind and heart are not broken,” he said.

Government has acknowledged the growing number of acid attacks in Cambodia and they are in the process of drafting acid law since January 2010, according to Teng Savong, secretary of state of Ministry of Interior.

“The draft law is created to reduce number of incident of acid attacks by punishing convicted perpetrators and regulating acid sale in the market today. The draft law will be passed to National Assembly in the early of the month,” Teng Savong said.

When talking about the acid law, Som Bunnarith stated that he supports the law since it will help reduce in number of acid attacks. “If there was acid law before, people might not dare to douse people with acid,” he said, “some problems were really small, but people used acid to resolve those issues.” However, he said that he would not prosecute his wife since she is the core support of the family now.

He added that “if there is acid law, I will be happy because I don’t want other people to face the horrible problems like me. I want it to finish because acid can cause separation and poverty.”

Som Bunnarith pointed out that it is not just family problem but it is social problem. “If a husband was doused, system in family would be changed. Wife will be responsible for everything,” he said, “it impacts your family’s finance leading to society if there are more acid attacks.”

With his experience of difficulties in life and discrimination against him, Som Bunnarith said that each Cambodian citizen should not look down on or avoid not only acid victims but also disable people caused from whatever mean.

“If you face the problems we are facing now, it will be hard for you to accept. Therefore, if you see any disable people, don’t discriminate us,” Som Bunnarith said.