Geeta was lying on her cot, her two small daughters cradled at each side. The night was like any other for the 23-year-old mother living with her husband and her in-laws in a slum in Agra, India. But Geeta knew something was wrong.
Things with her husband had become unusually tense after the birth of her daughters. Geeta felt it had something to do with her husband desperately wanting a son -- as many Indian men do. The lack of a son could mean that he would lose his rights to family assets, which could be claimed by other family members.
The beatings started around that time. Often, he would come home drunk and physically assault her.
Tonight, though, the house was quiet.
Geeta shut her eyes and tried to go to sleep. In an instant, her face was consumed with unbearable pain. Her daughters were screaming.
Geeta’s husband had thrown acid on all three of them as they slept.
Despite the pain, Geeta rushed herself and her daughters to the nearest police station. She still remembers every detail of that night, more than two decades ago, that changed the course of her life.
Weeks later, one of her daughters succumbed to her injuries and died. The other daughter, Neta, then 3, would grow up in shameful isolation, without a face and nearly blind.