The story of Mukthar Mai
Mukthar Mai is a woman from the southern Punjab region of Pakistan. She symbolizes the fate of the many Pakistani women who are raped, burned or murdered over matters of "honour". Thanks to exceptional courage and determination, Mai has transformed herself from an illiterate outcast into an international personality.
Mai’s fight
Mukthar Mai is trying to change the way women are treated in Pakistan. Her fight began in 2002, when she was gang raped on the orders of village tribal council elders. The rape was meant to restore her family’s honour after her younger brother had been accused of seeing a girl from a rival tribe.
In a country where Human Rights Watch says the vast majority of rapes and other violent crimes against women go unpunished, Mai broke the silence. She not only pressed charges, she fought her case all the way to the nation’s highest court. In a case that sent shock waves through Pakistan, her attackers were found guilty. She used her government compensation money to build schools in her village.
Strap
"I have a message to the women of the world and all the women who have been raped or subjected to any kind of violation: that no matter what, they must talk about it and they must fight for justice."
Interview with Mukthar Mai
"I try to bring the first drop of water"
Your case is an example of the gender apartheid in Pakistan. Do you consider yourself a victim?
"Yes, I consider myself a victim. But now I feel proud when people consider me as a role model or someone who is working for victims."
How would you describe victimhood in your case?
"Well, I think what happened to me is the worst thing one can do to any woman. So I can describe my victimhood in these terms: I were a man, this would not have happened to me, so they made me a victim because I am a woman."
If this kind of gender apartheid exists in your view, what are its roots?
"The roots of gender apartheid are the feudal system, illiteracy, men's conservative thinking and society's social values. Plus politics."
There are perhaps thousands of "honour crimes" like the one you suffered in Pakistan each year. Survivors are more likely to kill themselves or be killed by their families than to turn to a legal system which requires four male adult Muslim eye witnesses to testify to rape, otherwise the victim can be convicted of fornication and adultery. But you went to court. What makes you so strong?
"I think Allah and my mother made me strong and gave me my inner will."
You have responded to the violence directed at you and other women with an insistence upon justice and education. When will you consider your battle to be over? What goals have to be achieved?
"I am battling against a system and I know it will take time. I also realize that this is not an easy task, but I am trying to bring the first drop of water in a heavy rain. I want to make the best contribution I can, and pray to Allah for change."
You are far from safe. Only global pressure forced Pakistan to give you a passport so that you could meet women abroad, and you still receive death threats from those who view you as a danger to the nation’s image and social order. How do you manage?
"Yes, there is a lot of pressure – more than you can imagine – but I have a mission before me. So I never think of that pressure and I believe Allah is with me."
In your opinion, what should be the focus of worldwide academic research in the field of victimology?
"A total change in the judicial system and tackling root causes."
What must researchers not forget under any circumstances?
"I think that researchers should concentrate more on victims. What I mean is that they should include the victim in their work towards better outcomes."
From unknown village girl to international celebrity travelling the world to spread her message. How does that make you feel?
"It is quite amazing for me, this change in my life. But I still wish the rape had not happened to me."
When Rapists Walk Free
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (New York Times)
E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
One of the gutsiest people on earth is Mukhtaran Bibi. And after this week, she'll need that courage just to survive.
Mukhtaran, a tall, slim young woman who never attended school as a child, lives in a poor and remote village in the
Mukhtaran was meant to be so shamed that she would commit suicide. But in a society where women are supposed to be soft and helpless, she proved indescribably tough, and she found the courage to live. She demanded the prosecution of her attackers, and six were sent to death row.
She received $8,300 in compensation and used it to start two schools in the village, one for boys and one for girls, because she feels that education is the best way to change attitudes like those that led to the attack on her. Illiterate herself, she then enrolled in her own elementary school.
I visited Mukhtaran in her village in September and wrote a column about her. Readers responded with an avalanche of mail, including 1,300 donations for Mukhtaran totaling $133,000.
The money arrived just in time, for Mukhtaran's schools had run out of funds. She had sold her family's cow to keep them open because she believes so passionately in the redemptive power of education.
Now that cash from readers has put the schools on a sound financial footing again. And Mercy Corps, a first-rate American aid group already active in
Down the road, Mukhtaran says, she will try to start her own aid group to battle honor killings. And even though she lives in a remote village without electricity, she has galvanized her supporters to launch a Web site: www.mukhtarmai.com. (Although her legal name is Mukhtaran Bibi, she is known in the Pakistani press by a variant, Mukhtar Mai).
Until two days ago, she was thriving. Then -- disaster.
A Pakistani court overturned the death sentences of all six men convicted in the attack on her and ordered five of them freed. They are her neighbors and will be living alongside her. Mukhtaran was in the courthouse and collapsed in tears, fearful of the risk this brings to her family.
''Yes, there is danger,'' she said by telephone afterward. ''We are afraid for our lives, but we will face whatever fate brings for us.''
Mukhtaran, not the kind of woman to squander money on herself by flying, even when she has access to $133,000, took an exhausting 12-hour bus ride to
I had planned to be in
Mukhtaran's life illuminates what will be the central moral challenge of this century, the brutality that is the lot of so many women and girls in poor countries. For starters, because of inattention to maternal health, a woman dies in childbirth in the developing world every minute.
In
Mukhtaran is a hero. She suffered what in her society was the most extreme shame imaginable -- and emerged as a symbol of virtue. She has taken a sordid story of perennial poverty, gang rape and judicial brutality and inspired us with her faith in the power of education -- and her hope.
No wonder the
Last fall I wrote about Mukhtaran Bibi, a woman who was sentenced by a tribal council in
Ms. Mukhtaran was supposed to have committed suicide. Instead, with the backing of a local Islamic leader, she fought back and testified against her persecutors. Six were convicted.
Then Ms. Mukhtaran, who believed that the best way to overcome such abuses was through better education, used her compensation money to start two schools in her village, one for boys and the other for girls. She went out of her way to enroll the children of her attackers in the schools, showing that she bore no grudges.
Readers of my column sent in more than $133,000 for her. Mercy Corps, a
A group of Pakistani-Americans invited Ms. Mukhtaran to visit the
On Thursday, the authorities put Ms. Mukhtaran under house arrest -- to stop her from speaking out. In phone conversations in the last few days, she said that when she tried to step outside, police pointed their guns at her. To silence her, the police cut off her land line.
After she had been detained, a court ordered her attackers released, putting her life in jeopardy. That happened on a Friday afternoon, when the courts do not normally operate, and apparently was a warning to Ms. Mukhtaran to shut up. Instead, Ms. Mukhtaran continued her protests by cellphone. But at dawn yesterday the police bustled her off, and there's been no word from her since. Her cellphone doesn't answer.
Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer who is head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said she had learned that Ms. Mukhtaran was taken to
''She's in their custody, in illegal custody,'' Ms. Jahangir said. ''They have gone completely crazy.''
Even if Ms. Mukhtaran were released, airports have been alerted to bar her from leaving the country. According to Dawn, a
Excuse me, but Ms. Mukhtaran, a symbol of courage and altruism, is the best hope for
I've been sympathetic to Mr. Musharraf till now, despite his nuclear negligence, partly because he's cooperated in the war on terrorism and partly because he has done a good job nurturing
But now President Musharraf has gone nuts.
''This is all because they think they have the support of the
So, Mr. Bush, how about asking Mr. Musharraf to focus on finding Osama, instead of kidnapping rape victims who speak out? And invite Ms. Mukhtaran to the Oval Office -- to show that Americans stand not only with generals who seize power, but also with ordinary people of extraordinary courage.
After the Pakistani government tired of kidnapping Mukhtaran Bibi, holding her hostage and lying about it, I finally got a call through to her.
Pakistani officials had just freed Ms. Mukhtaran and returned her to her village. She was exhausted, scared, relieved, giddy and sometimes giggly -- and also deeply thankful to all the Pakistanis and Americans who spoke up for her.
''I'm so thankful to everyone that they keep a woman like me in mind,'' she said fervently. Told that lots of people around the world think she's a hero, she laughed and responded: ''God is great. If some people think I'm a hero, it's only because of all those people who give me support.''
President Pervez Musharraf's government is still lying about Ms. Mukhtaran, saying that she is now free to travel to the
Let me back up. Ms. Mukhtaran is the indomitable peasant whom I first wrote about in September after visiting her in her village. Three years ago, a village council was upset at her brother, and sentenced her to be gang-raped. After four men raped her, she was forced to walk home nearly naked before a jeering crowd.
She then defied tradition by testifying against her attackers, sending them to prison, and she used compensation money to start elementary schools in her village. She herself is now enrolled in the fourth grade; a measure of her passion for education is that the day after the government released her, she was back in class.
Ms. Mukhtaran is using donations (through www.mercycorps.org) to start an ambulance service and a women's shelter, and she is also campaigning against honor killings, rapes and acid attacks that disfigure women. But President Musharraf, defensive about
So when Pakistani officials learned that Ms. Mukhtaran planned to visit the
Mr. Musharraf admitted to reporters on Friday that he had ordered Ms. Mukhtaran placed on the blacklist. And although Pakistan had claimed that Ms. Mukhtaran had decided on her own not to go to the
U.S. because her mother was sick (actually, she wasn't), the president in effect acknowledged that that was one more lie. ''She was told not to go'' to the
''I don't want to project a bad image of Pakistan.'' he explained.
I sympathize. From
Ms. Mukhtaran says she can't talk about what happened after the government kidnapped her. But this is what seems to have unfolded: In Islamabad, government officials ferociously berated her for being unpatriotic and warned that they could punish her family and friends. In particular, they threatened to have the father of a friend fired from his job.
Fittingly, the government is facing its own pressures. Government officials have denounced Pakistani aid groups for helping Ms. Mukhtaran, and Mr. Musharraf added that they were ''as bad as the Islamic extremists.'' So now the aid groups are threatening to pull out of their partnership with the government.
Mr. Musharraf has helped in the war on terrorism and has managed
On Friday, Ms. Mukhtaran told me that one of the prime minister's aides had just called to offer to take her to the
''I said, 'No,''' she said. ''I only want to go of my own free will.''
Hats off to this incredible woman. President Musharraf may have ousted rivals and overthrown a civilian government, but he has now met his match -- a peasant woman with a heart of gold and a will of steel.
When Pakistan's prime minister visits next month, President Bush will presumably use the occasion to repeat his praise for President Pervez Musharraf as a bold leader ''dedicated in the protection of his own people.'' Then they will sit down and discuss Mr. Bush's plan to sell Pakistan F-16 fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
But here's a suggestion: How about the White House dropping word that before the prime minister arrives, he first return the passport of Mukhtaran Bibi, the rape victim turned human-rights campaigner, so that she can visit the United States?
Despite Mr. Bush's praise, General Musharraf shows more commitment to his F-16's than to his people. Now he's paying the price. Visiting
Pakistani newspapers savaged him for harming
Yet it's crucial to remember that Ms. Mukhtaran is only a window into a much larger problem -- the neglect by General Musharraf's government of the plight of women and girls.
Early this year, for example, a doctor named Shazia Khalid reported that she had been gang-raped in a government-owned natural-gas plant. Instead of treating her medically, officials drugged her into unconsciousness for three days to keep her quiet and then shipped her to a psychiatric hospital.
When she persisted in trying to report the rape, she was held under house arrest in
On average, a woman is raped every two hours in
While Ms. Mukhtaran and Dr. Shazia have attracted international support, most victims in
In another case this year, an 11-year-girl named Nazan was rescued from her husband's family, which beat her, broke her arm and strung her from the ceiling because she didn't work hard enough.
Then there are
When a group of middle-class Pakistani women demonstrated last month for equal rights in
Ms. Jahangir says the directions to the police about her, coming from an intelligence official close to General Musharraf, were: ''Teach the [expletive] a lesson. Strip her in public.'' Sure enough, the police ripped her shirt off and tried to pull her trousers off. If that's how General Musharraf's government treats one of the country's most distinguished lawyers, imagine what happens to a peasant challenging injustice.
I've heard from Pakistanis who, while horrified by honor killings and rapes, are embarrassed that it is the barbarism in
So while meeting the Pakistani prime minister, Mr. Bush could discuss not only F-16's, but also repeal of the hudood laws. And Mr. Bush could invite Ms. Mukhtaran to the Oval Office as well, both to hail a genuine Pakistani hero and to spotlight the goals of ordinary Pakistanis -- not fighter aircraft but simple justice.
She may be the bravest woman in the world, but Mukhtaran Bibi was finally looking intimidated.
Mukhtaran is the Pakistani peasant woman who was gang-raped on the order of a local council, and then forced to walk home nearly naked before a jeering crowd. Instead of killing herself, as rape victims routinely do in such places, she prosecuted her attackers and became a women's rights leader in
But last week, she was confronted by something she found pretty scary: Midtown Manhattan.
Glamour magazine is honoring Mukhtaran as a ''woman of the year.'' It flew her from
At the Glamour banquet at
Mukhtaran is, of course, an unlikely star of Glamour. She's a peasant living in a remote village who doesn't know her age (her mom says she was born in the winter, but no one knows what year). She is a devout Muslim who wears a head scarf, and while her photos adorn Glamour's December issue, her clothing-to-skin ratio may set an all-time high for the magazine.
While Mukhtaran is being feted here, it's easy to think that her problems are over. But they aren't. President Pervez Musharraf allowed her to make this visit, after blocking a trip by her in June and then kidnapping her when she protested, but Pakistani intelligence agents still follow her everywhere. Agents open or confiscate her mail and spread lies about her in the Pakistani press, and she is reported to be on a death list. At some point, her luck may run out -- and her fame won't stop a knife or a bullet.
''I'm still very scared,'' she said. ''I feel threatened.''
Yet what sets Mukhtaran apart is not her suffering, but her effectiveness in bringing hope, education and new attitudes to rural
After prosecuting the rapists, Mukhtaran used the compensation money of $8,300 to start schools in her village because she thinks that education is the best way to overcome feudal attitudes. Girls from surrounding areas hike up to two hours each way to attend the school.
When I first met Mukhtaran, in her village, she was running out of money to keep the schools operating, her enemies were biding their time to murder her, and she was lonely and frightened -- and unwavering.
Times readers responded with a torrent of contributions, more than $130,000, and Mukhtaran has used the money to improve the schools and ''endow'' them by buying cows, which will generate income to pay expenses. She has also bought an ambulance for the area and built a police station that provides security, and now she's preparing to build the first high school in the area, along with a clinic and a women's shelter. (If you want to help, please don't send money to me; contributions can be sent to either of these Web sites:
www.4anaa.org and www.mercycorps.org.)
Not surprisingly, filmmakers are jostling to make a movie of her story. Mukhtaran turned a tale of gang rape into something that is actually inspiring.
The world lost Rosa Parks last month, but Mukhtaran is a Rosa Parks for the new century: a woman simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary, who transcended her role and started a broad movement for justice. The most pressing moral challenge today is to overcome the brutality and inequality faced by women and girls in the developing world, and Mukhtaran has become a leader of that struggle. I hope that we'll follow her, and that the
Mukhtaran was in the fourth grade in her own school when I met her. So on this visit I asked her over pizza on
''I've been too busy to go to school much,'' she said, embarrassed. ''So I'm still in the same grade. But I do hope that eventually I'll get to high school.''
Never mind. This is one fourth grader who can be a teacher for us all.
I don't know whether journalists felt it around the young Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., but around Mukhtar Mai I sense the presence of greatness.
Mukhtar, who also goes by the name Mukhtaran Bibi, is the young peasant woman -- she doesn't know exactly how old she is -- who three years ago was gang-raped on order of a local tribal council. Instead of killing herself, as was expected of any self-respecting woman, she prosecuted her attackers, used compensation money to start schools, and started a nationwide revolution to empower women.
Every day, poor and desperate women and girls with tear-smudged cheeks arrive in this remote and impoverished village, seeking sanctuary. Every night, up to a dozen of them sleep on the floor in Mukhtar's bedroom beside her. (She has given her bed to the principal of the girls' elementary school she started here.)
One visitor is a lovely 7-year-old girl who breaks down in huge, heartbreaking sobs as she tells how the servant of a rich family raped her, and how the rich family then threatened to kill her and her family unless she recanted her accusation.
Then there's Fauzia Bibi, a 30-year-old who was raped and tortured by eight men for two days to punish her family because her uncle supposedly had an affair with a woman from their clan. The attackers are threatening to kill her entire family unless she recants.
Inspired by Mukhtar, these women are standing their ground. They are risking their lives -- and, in anguish, those of their loved ones -- to prosecute their attackers. It's a lesson in courage and civics I'll never forget.
''As long as I'm alive, we'll proceed with this case,'' said Shabana Mai, the mother of the 7-year-old. ''Of course, if they cut my head off, there's nothing I can do.''
Mukhtar arranges legal assistance for these women, puts them in touch with aid groups, and looks to their other needs. One woman arrived without a nose; cutting off a nose is a traditional Pakistani way of punishing women. Mukhtar has arranged three surgical operations and, above all, the prosecution of the man who did it.
With her faith in the civilizing power of education, Mukhtar also goes door to door and browbeats parents into sending their daughters to her school. ''Sometimes I'll make a deal with the parents -- I tell them, 'You send two of your daughters to my school, and I'll let you keep two others at home,' '' she explained.
The school goes up to the fourth grade, though next year it will include fifth grade as well. The academic star is Sidra Nazar, a 9-year-old who ranks first in the fourth grade.
But a month ago, Sidra's parents pulled her out of school. Her clan was in a dispute with another, and to resolve the matter she was offered as a bride to a 20-year-old man in the other clan. Outraged, Mukhtar went to Sidra's parents and raised a stink.
Her meddling infuriated Sidra's parents, but they dropped the marriage plans, and Sidra is back in school. ''I want to be a doctor,'' she told me. (Video of Mukhtar, Sidra and her school is at nytimes.com/kristof.)
I had the honor of addressing the graduation ceremony for Mukhtar's school. (I didn't get an honorary degree, perhaps because Mukhtar thought I would be offended by being made an honorary fourth grader.) But another commencement speaker, a Pakistani human rights activist named Khalid Aftab Sulehri, said it best: he described Mukhtar as ''the mother of the nation.''
That's what I find so inspiring about this woman. Hers is as sordid a story of evil and victimization as one could find, and yet -- by dauntless courage, by the magic of the human spirit -- she has transformed it into an uplifting vision of hope.
My last two columns recounted the story of Aisha Parveen, a young Pakistani who escaped from the brothel in which she had been imprisoned for six years. The courts were threatening to send her back to the brothel owner, who planned to kill her.
In the last few days, everything has changed. The police have dropped all charges against Ms. Parveen, and instead they have arrested the brothel owner on charges of kidnapping her and attempting to murder her. The Pakistani government is now behind Ms. Parveen and giving her 24-hour police protection, and she's thrilled -- and thankful for the support from so many readers.
Now for the million other Aisha Parveens around the world.
When I met Mukhtar Mai here two years ago, she was at her wits' end. Her campaign to fight rape and illiteracy had run out of money, and she was selling family possessions to keep her schools operating.
Now so much has changed. Mukhtar, who also goes by the name Mukhtaran Bibi, has become an international celebrity. Her autobiography is the No. 3 best seller in
Best of all, her campaign is really working: more women seem to be prosecuting rapes and acid attacks, and there's some evidence that such violence is dropping.
But partly because of her success, there's a good chance that Mukhtar will be murdered. ''The traditional landowners want me dead,'' Mukhtar said sadly. ''And the government doesn't want me around, either.''
President Pervez Musharraf is a modern man, and I'm sure he is privately repulsed by acid attacks and rapes. In some respects, he's doing a fine job -- above all, he's presiding over a stunning 8 percent economic growth rate (those socks you're wearing may be manufactured in
But Mr. Musharraf seems to feel that Mukhtar is casting a spotlight on
The authorities confiscate Mukhtar's mail and feed vicious propaganda to sympathetic journalists, portraying her as a liar, a cheat and an unpatriotic dupe of
''My life and death is in God's hands,'' she said. ''That doesn't bother me. But why does the government keep treating me as if I were a liar and criminal?''
A top police official has threatened to imprison her for fornication, which would discredit her and remove her from the scene. The charge is ludicrous, for Mukhtar is constantly chaperoned -- by rape victims who have sought sanctuary here and sleep on the floor beside her each night.
''For the first time, I feel that the government has a plan to deal with me,'' Mukhtar told me. And that plan, she said, is to kill her or throw her into prison.
Naseem Akhtar, the principal of Mukhtar's elementary school for girls, added, ''I want you to know that no matter how we are killed, even if it looks like an accident, it isn't.''
The threats have come from high up. Brig. Ijaz Shah, a buddy of President Musharraf's, traveled to
According to Dr. Buttar, Mr. Shah started by defending the president's record on women's rights. But then, alluding to a planned visit by Mukhtar to
That's right. The racism is the least of it: one of President Musharraf's closest aides was warning that unless Mukhtar piped down, the government of
Just for the record, I don't believe him. Mr. Musharraf should fire him at once.
I make a big deal of Mukhtar because if poor nations like
This means that gender equality is not only a matter of simple justice, but also essential for fighting poverty and achieving economic development. If
So General Musharraf, back off! Leave Mukhtar alone, and go find Osama.
