hen I first saw Aami Shoro in Thatta, she was sitting in a wheelchair under a makeshift shelter, working on an appliqué artwork. The colours of her embroidery stood out against the dullness of her surroundings and shone in the afternoon sun. At first, she looked like any other lady sewing to make money. But Aami’s story is written on her body in scars that go across her neck, back and arms. They are reminders of brutality so bad that she can no longer walk.

Aami was married to a man considerably older than her when she was only 15. By the time she was 27, she had six children. When her life fell apart, her youngest child was nine months old and nursing.

One afternoon, while she was cooking, her husband told her to leave right away to help him with work. She told him to wait till the supper was ready. That simple answer led to horrific suffering.

She recalls, “He suddenly hit me in the neck and back with an axe. I passed out as blood spilt out of me. He raced away, yelling “blood, blood.” My child was left alone in the cradle and cried.

Her brother rushed to her side, but it took about an hour to get her to the nearest hospital. The damage to her spinal chord was irreparable by the time she got medical attention. The delay wasn’t accidental. “They said it was a case of domestic violence and therefore not urgent,” Aami remembers.

For two years, Aami lay flat on a wooden wagon. She couldn’t move and had no dignity and no wheelchair. “I felt like I was dead, but I was still alive,” she adds. In the end, she got a rickety wheelchair. Subsequently, with the support of the Sindh Rural Support Organisation, she got a sturdier one.

The scars are all over her person. Aami says, “After all those years, I........

© The News on Sunday