Abandoned Child Faces Gloomy Future Because Of Acid Attack

For this project “Acid Attack Victims” I aimed to photograph and find out the stories of women in Vietnam that are victims of acid attacks. The following is the story of a horrific attack in southern Vietnam.

A little girl, born in 2005, was blinded in both eyes and had up to 96% of her body deformed due to a petty conflict between two selfish women. One woman attacked the mother and child with acid, resulting in both mother and child being permanently injured. The most painful part of this incident is that the little girl was immediatly forced to live a painful childhood being disfigured for the rest of her life. She has had her furure stolen due to the actions of one selfish woman.

Meeting this brave girl, photographing her and hearing her story bought a lot of emotions up in me. I went to her home in a small village in Vinh Long province located in the southern part of Vietnem (Mekong Delta, Vietnam). After a long walk through the unspoilt village I eventually found her house. A small house in which she lived with her grandmother. Seeing this girl from afar, it was hard to contain my emotions, but seeing her up close took all my strength to hold the emotions back.She was blinded by the ravages of acid as well as her head, shoulders, chest and arms were disfigured by the acid.

The incident occured on June 17th 2012. While walking on the road with her mother, another woman in the village had a conflict with her mother. The attacker then proceeded to throw acid directly on the mother and daughter. After being treated, the mother abandoned her child. I think the reason might be that she was ashamed, heartbroken and wanted to stay away from people in society and the community’s prejudices. So far the little girl is living with her grandmother.

The little girl has a dark and gloomy future, yet, when I met her I was amazed that she always smiled innocently and even sang her favourite songs happily. Despite being disabled and not able to go to school like other children, she tries to help her grandmother with household chores such as feeding chickens, picking vegetables, cooking, etc. It has been 8 years since the incident and as you can imagine, her body aches and she has all the disadvantages of her very difficult life. Fortunately, she also receives support from the community to help pay a part of the cost of the medical treatments. Treatments such as operations to avoid the new skin shrinkage and repair the heavy damage on the head.

In 2018, her grandmother asked for the eyes of a death row inmate after being sentenced, in hope to bring light to her grandchild, but to no avail. Still, the brave young girl sits singing to herself, accepting her life and fate.

This story along with my photographs are for the world to see and to let everyone know that you should not act out on selfish emotions like jealousy, anger, hatred etc. Harming others is never the solution and especially harming innocent children such as the little girl in this story. No one has the right to harm anyone else. wish all good things and good luck for this brave little girl. Your wishes and valuable messages for her will also help her have a brighter future, knowing that she is not alone.

Thanks for watching my post.

Nguyen Vu Phuoc

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Photographer

Photo project by photographer Nguyen Vu Phuoc: Photographing Vietnamese women who have been attacked by acid in order to send a message to everyone living in happiness without jealousy, unselfishness, and happy life together.

For society, there must be the highest sanctions, to deter, to prevent this cruel behavior from being continued in society.

For businesses, it is necessary to strictly control and ban the purchase and sale acid freely in society

More info: nguyenvuphuoc.com