Pakistans Burnt Beauticians (20 images)

Pakistan's Burnt Beauticians

The women in this popular Pakistani beauty salon are having manicures, pedicures and blow dries. They gossip, read magazines and talk on their mobiles. It is a familiar scene. But this is no ordinary salon. Saira, who dries their hair, only has one eye, and nineteen plastic surgery operations have done little to repair her burnt face. While, Urooj, who paints their nails is disfigured by the burns that cover 70% of her body. They are part of a...
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Pakistan's Burnt Beauticians

The women in this popular Pakistani beauty salon are having manicures, pedicures and blow dries. They gossip, read magazines and talk on their mobiles. It is a familiar scene. But this is no ordinary salon. Saira, who dries their hair, only has one eye, and nineteen plastic surgery operations have done little to repair her burnt face. While, Urooj, who paints their nails is disfigured by the burns that cover 70% of her body. They are part of a horrific trend in Pakistan, where husbands, suitors, and brothers burn the women they are supposed to love.

Saira's family married her off when she was in her teens on the condition that she wouldn't live with her husband until she had finished school. But, just a few months after the marriage, he began demanding she move in with him. She refused. One day, he turned up at house unannounced and threw a bottle of sulphuric acid over her. Urooj's crime was giving birth to a daughter instead of a son. One night, as she slept, her abusive husband covered her in kerosene and then set her alight

Saira and Urooj's lives have been transformed by their work at the salon. This is down to the perseverance of one woman: a gutsy, glamorous, beauty executive. Musarrat Misbah is the most famous beautician in Pakistan. In addition to running her 32 salons she has applied Princess Diana's eyeliner, Margaret Thatcher's lipstick and even Christopher Lee's foundation. Mussarrat was so shocked by an encounter with a burns victim five years ago that she now spends more time in hospitals, dusty villages and slums than at fashion shows, film shoots and parties. Working in her Depilex salons, the burnt beauticians can start to put their lives back together again. "You listen to their stories," says Musarrat, "and the attackers are motivated by such small reasons, sometimes no reason at all, and you think, 'Is this the world we want to live in?' Musarrat is doing her part to build another world.
Ella Saltmarshe 2009
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