Intermedia Project Assignment

During my junior year of high school, my teacher assigned us a semester-long research paper on a topic of our choice, although it had to be about an important social issue. As a former Journalism major, I had been closely following the updates on the Arab Spring, as the Middle East has always held a certain fascination to me. Perhaps all those mummies and pyramids had something to do with it. Using that as my inspiration, I decided to use human rights issues as the lens of my paper, though focusing on those of women (or lack thereof) specifically. Because the news was still developing and being made on a daily basis in regards to the Arab Spring, I eventually chose "The Treatment of Afghan Women Under Taliban Rule" as the topic of my paper. Although the Taliban were in power in the late '90s to early '00s, human rights violations, especially those of women, are still very much an issue today, and thus the inspiration for the issue I want to do for this Intermedia Project Assignment. I'm still going to look at how women are affected by the turmoil in the Middle East, but this time I'm going to focus on the disproportionate role they play as the victims of brutal acid gas attacks.

 I'm sure most of us have (hopefully) seen the haunting images of these victims, but in case you haven't, here's a link:  http://abcnews.go.com/2020/slideshow?id=9477095 . At least 1,500 attacks are reported globally each year, although experts warn the real number is far higher. 80% of acid attacks are aimed at women, with 40% being under the age of 18. The main reasons for these attacks are rejections of love, marriage, or sex proposals. In other cases, perpetrators motivated by land or business disputes may attack their opponents' wives or daughters because disfiguring these women will irreparably harm the entire family. However personally-motivated these attacks may seem, they are symptomatic of a widespread societal problem- the pervasive subjugation of women in economic, social, cultural, and political spheres of life. 

Just like the position I took in my research paper, the Middle East is undergoing a lot of social and political upheaval and reform; the stakes are high, and the consequences of failure can be devastating, especially for women. That is why I believe the leaders of these countries, as well as the leaders of the world, have a duty and responsibility to defend women's rights with action and policy, not just lofty rhetoric. True reconciliation cannot be realized by sacrificing the rights of the Middle East's women. There are clear choices for those entrusted with ensuring the Middle East's peace and prosperity. Will it be a region that empowers women, or one that oppresses them? We can only wait and see. 

Now that I've briefed you on the issue I want to do, my personal relationship to that issue, and my stance on it, I guess I'll go into a little bit of detail on what I was thinking for presenting this issue to the class. My idea is to read the personal story of a victim, either Katie Piper or Hanifa Nakiryowa, while simultaneously playing the trailer from the documentary Saving Face (which is about acid attack victims) or perhaps news footage that covered an acid attack in the background. I was also thinking of projecting some before and after pictures of acid attack victims, too.