World News for Students of English

22-04-2015 15:00

Thirty-three-year-old Natalia Ponce de León is the victim of a brutal acid attack. She’s seeking justice for other women in Columbia who are suffering from violence.

Natalia is scarred for life after acid was thrown in her face in March last year. She’s now calling for a maximum jail term of up to forty years in prison for people who carry out such attacks.

“And for the people that do this, what we all want is for justice with tougher penalties and more stringent measures regarding the sale of chemicals so that they’re not in the wrong hands.”

According to Colombia’s Institute of Legal Medicine, there were 900 cases of acid attacks in the country over the past decade, and most of the cases were against women between the ages of 26 and 35.

“It destroys you – look at my burned body without a face, without identity and identity erased absolute torture. I was between life and death.”

It’s been more than one year since the acid attack on Natalia. She has since dedicated herself to establishing a foundation in her name that seeks to help other acid attack victims in the country.

Difficult words: seek (to try to achieve something), stringent (strict), measure (rule), torture (an act of hurting somebody), establish (to start something), foundation (organisation, charity organisation).

Source: www.ondemandnews.com