Gang rape victim fights back for
girls' education
After Mukhtar Mai was gang raped on the orders of a tribal
court in Pakistan in 2002, local tradition dictated she was expected to commit suicide.
She defied her attackers and fought for justice. More than a decade on, she is
still fighting for women's rights in Pakistan and inspiring many around the
world. Mai's "honor revenge" was carried out on the orders of a Jirga
-- a tribal assembly -- because her 12-year-old brother was wrongly accused,
according to a subsequent investigation ordered by the Punjab governor, of
improper relations with a woman from another tribe Mai grew up in a small
village in the Punjab region of Pakistan, where she never went to school and
was forced into marriage at the age 13.After only a few years, she was divorced
and living back home with her parents. “I came back to my parents' home and I
started to make myself independent. I started working at home doing sewing and
household work, low income work. “I did that for 10 or 12 years and generated
enough money to buy my own cattle."
At the age of 28, her life changed forever when she was gang
raped as a result of her younger brother's alleged crime. Far from destroying
her, as her attackers would have expected, the incident made Mai determined to
fight for women's rights and she set up the Mukhtar Mai Women's Organization.Mai's school gained
worldwide attention following a spate of articles in the international press in
2005 and donations began to pour in -- as well as some government money. Today
the Mukhtar Mai Girl's Model School offers free education, books and uniforms
to 550 girls from nursery to the beginning of high school. In the decade since
her attack, Mai believes she has made a difference to women's rights in
Pakistan, but still has a long way to go.
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