Mukhtar Mai is not only a hero in the eyes of persecuted women and women's rights advocates throughout the world. Her story quickly traveled around the globe and had the international community raising a brow towards Pakistan. After all, Pakistan is a country where women's faces are disfigured using acid and they are killed for "honor." Mukhtar quickly became a hero for me and has inspired the women, politicians and governments of many different nations.
From Pakistan, a country where ninety percent of women remain ignorant of their most basic rights, Mukhtar Mai quickly enlightened the international community on the atrocities against women in Pakistan. In June of 2002, a village council of elders from a rival tribe, the Mastoi's, sentenced 30-year-old Mukhtar Mai to suffer being gang raped for the alleged misconduct of her younger sibling, Shakoor.
At the time, twelve-year-old Shakoor, a member of the nearby Titla tribe was seen with a woman from the Mastoi tribe. Claiming that the Mastoi's had been shamed, Shakoor was immediately accused of adultery. Mukhtar Mai was called to the village council to apologize for her brother's behavior. In an interview with ABC, Mukhtar tells of her shock.
"It was in my mind that this is the tradition of the head of council- that if a lady goes there, then he places his hand on the head of the woman and he says, 'OK, you are excused.'"
Things went drastically different.
"In the presence of 200 people, four men took me, I told them, they're like my brother, not to do this. But they did not listen to me."
Afterwards she was forced to walk home practically naked in front of a crowd of onlookers.
"A woman raped shames the community and dishonors the man" according to Nafisa Shah, author of A story in black: Karo kari killings in Upper Sindh. And women who suffer rape as a form of punishment often commit suicide in order to end the possibility of further shame to their family. Like most violated women, it was reported that Mai attempted suicide , but unlike those women in Pakistan she was saved, survived and supported by her village Imam. In an interview with Islamica magazine Mukhtar relives her thoughts-
"I figured if I am going to die anyhow (by committing suicide), I might as well die trying to fight for the truth ."
The local village Imam, Abdul Razzaq, felt a sin was committed and condemned the act during a Friday sermon. He brought nearby journalist Mureed Abbas to meet with Mukhtar's father and gathered support to further publish her story.
In the years following, Mukhtar Mai has pursued justice against the four assailants and continues to appeal every loophole that supports such criminal acts. For the first time in Pakistan's history, Mai became the first woman to seek legal action against her government for its victimization of women, an unprecedented act for a woman who has never been to school, is illiterate and has only known a poverty stricken village as home.
With the 500,000 Rupee compensation awarded to Mukhtar by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf she was able to begin supporting her village of Meerwala. Located in a remote and poor section of Pakistan, Meerwala had no education system for women and children until Mai made a change. By dedicating her compensation award, she's developed several schools in her village and has even enrolled herself and her attacker's children in the schools.
"If women aren't educated it's hard for them to speak up for themselves" states Mai.
" Education is power. People can be trampled on if they are not educated. But if they are educated they can fight back."
Not only is she fighting back but Mukhtar has also forced the world to pay attention to the condition of abused women in Pakistan. She has become an international spokesperson for women's human rights in her country. Given all of this Mukhtar did not stop there; she has also purchased old vans to serve as ambulances and has built several women's shelters. Steadily, she is building a future for those generations that come after her so that they may experience education and a future outside of the atrocious normalcy.
Laura Bush has honored Mukhtar by saying at an honorary dinner that she "proves that one woman can really change the world." Mai herself has also humbled herself to acknowledge that "it's because of the support of the world that I feel brave."
Aside from the compensation from her trial, Mukhtar has also received international funding for her schools from speaking engagements, women's advocate organizations as well as government funding from Pakistan. With five teachers in the girls' school and one in the boys' school, subjects like math, science, the Qur'an, Urdu, English, Islamic Studies, and Social Studies are taught to students who had previously gone without education.
Mai is a single woman making a difference through her commitment to improving young lives in a society where, during the first seven months of 2004, at least 151 women were gang-raped and 176 were killed in the name of "honor" according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).
"I've gained a lot of strength from building the school. I would not be alive today if I had not gained this strength, and I have more faith in Pakistan because of this," Mai stated in an interview early this year at her home.
Because she would rather "die at the hands of such animals" rather than to "give up her right to justice," Mukhtar has survived the odds of a demoralizing system and provided a model for others, she has sacrificed her identity to put a face to the countless lives of victimized women in Pakistan. Now the one woman who is raped every two hours has a face as do the hundreds who are victims of honor killings, domestic violence, burnings and murder.
Organizations can keep tabs on the amount of lives that are taken but the lives that Mukhtar Mai saves will continue to grow with every generation. The international slumber is over and as a world we know what women in Pakistan may go through and Mukhtar is our hero, our reason for knowing. |
