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June 15, 2005
Women's rights in Pakistan: The woman who dared to cry rape
Mukhtar Mai, teacher and rape victim(gang-raped on the orders of village elders to settle a tribal score), has been barred from leaving Pakistan, "the final insult in a case which has appalled urban Pakistanis, enraged human rights activists around the world and thrown a sharp and unflattering spotlight on the way Pakistan treats its women."
While America snuggles up to Pakistan for it's support in the War on Terror, Pakistan continues it's other war - a war on women!
It seems that Pakistan will go to "enormous and unjust lengths" to protect it's public image, in face of it's desperate attempts to quiet reports of the brutal justice of the tribal hinterlands in Punjab, just as a matter of public relations. After all, medieval punishment discourages investment in the country's infrastructure, and Pakistan is eager to be perceived as a haven for moderate Muslims.
As a result, Mukhtar Mai, nominated by Time magazine as one of Asia's heroes, could never have been allowed to go to America and tell her terrible story. As put by Time, "As long as the state refuses to fully challenge the brutality of tribal law, the plight of Pakistani women will continue. Mukhtar Mai is a symbol of their victimhood, but in her resilience she is also a symbol of their strength." As this article notes, "In the end, it seems, that strength and resilience was not for export."
- The Independent via WatchingAmerica.com
When Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped on the orders of village elders to settle a tribal score, she shocked Pakistan by taking her case to the courts. Now she finds herself persecuted once again.
(...) It was a scorching afternoon in Islamabad yesterday, when a visibly trembling Mukhtar Mai, teacher and rape victim, announced to assembled journalists that a long-planned trip to America was off because her mother was sick.
(...) No one believed her. Ms Mai was to publicise in the United States the work of the crisis centres she has developed since being brutally gang-raped on the orders of a village court in Meeranwalla, in the Punjab. Now it turned out that, because her mother was ill, she would be unable to undertake a trip that would have been highly embarrassing to the government of Pervez Musharraf.
(...) For the activists who have passionately championed Ms Mai's cause for three long years years, the shoddy and hastily arranged "show-conference" was the final insult in a case which has appalled urban Pakistanis, enraged human rights activists around the world and thrown a sharp and unflattering spotlight on the way Pakistan treats its women.
(...) During the first seven months of last year, according to the Independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 151 Pakistani women were gang-raped and 176 were simply murdered as the victims of honour killings. The traumatic case of Mukhtar Mai's experiences, which will not now be personally described to an American audience, has come to stand for all such brutal violations of female dignity in the remote tribal regions of the country.
(...) On a terrible June day three years ago, 14 men from the dominant Mastoi tribe in Meeranwalla volunteered to rape Ms Mai as a way to settle a score after her 12-year-old brother Abdul Shakoor was seen walking with a Mastoi girl. The decision on retribution had been taken by a village court to preserve tribal honour. The jirga, or council of village elders, summoned Ms Mai to apologise for her brother's sexual misdeed. When she apologised, they gang-raped her anyway.
Apparently, calling attention to such "abject abuse" is virtually unheard of even in so-called modern-day Pakistan,where the downtrodden, especially women, are expected to remain meek and not make waves. For all her pain and suffering, her abuse still continues by her forced submission to archaic laws and customs.Mukhtar Mai has been barred from proceeding abroad."
Read more about Mukhtar Mai's plight ......
Cross posted at Hyscience
Posted by Richard at June 15, 2005 4:16 PM
