Survivors clear acid test, DCW job offers healing touch

New Delhi: She doesn’t have the face that you would expect of a person whose role is to interact with people. And Mohini Atri knows that. After all, her face was disfigured in an acid attack a decade ago. In the years that followed, she silently bore the trauma of people constantly staring at her. “No one wanted me for a job where I would need to face the public,” she said from behind the help desk at the ITO office of the Delhi Commission for Women.“It is a big boost for me that DCW decided to give me a front-office job where I am supposed to directly deal with complainants at the help desk,” testified Atri, having realised that her new work has changed how people perceive her. “The people who come here don’t stare at me. They empathise with me and my struggles as an acid-attack survivor,” said the 33-year-old. “I feel happy at being able to work not just to earn for myself, but also to give hope to others.”
Atri has been hired on a monthly contract of Rs 20,000. After a three-month probation, she could be up for permanent employment. She is one of the two acid-attack survivors that DCW has engaged as part of its effort to provide employment to such victims. The Delhi government too had promised jobs to 33 survivors, but nothing has come of that assurance.
DCW has also decided to hire more survivors to run its Acid Watch Cell, while pursuing the case of employment for male survivors of acid attacks too. The commission had come across three men who had been attacked with acid; they now form part of the survivors’ database.
During an interaction with TOI at her workplace on Wednesday, Atri shared her joy at being recruited by DCW as an assistant coordinator on training and talked of how long it had taken for her to reach there. A graduate, she was attacked by a neighbour in 2005. “I came out of that emotionally and physically traumatic phase because of the support of my parents,” Atri said. But the healing was slow and till 2008 she was confined to her home, all her dreams of getting a job shattered. Today, she is married to a “very supportive man who makes me feel special” and has an eight-month-old child.
Atri’s fellow acid-attack survivor, Shaheen, has been brought on board as a part-time employee to assist in the implementation of the Acid Watch Cell. “We plan to take on four other survivors to run the cell, which will follow up with survivors on treatment needs and court cases,” said Swati Maliwal, chairperson, DCW.