Islamabad: A woman who was gang-raped on the orders of a village council to punish her brother has told how she has gone on to teach the children of her alleged attackers after setting up a school.
Mukhtar Mai last week renewed her fight for justice when she went back to Pakistan’s supreme court to petition against the acquittal of men previously convicted of the attack.
Her supporters hope a string of new laws as well as the Supreme Court’s decision to quash Asia Bibi’s blasphemy conviction show a shift in the judicial system to protect women.
Mai’s story caused international outcry in 2002 when it emerged a village council had ordered her rape because her 12-year-old brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a powerful rival clan.
Rather than kill herself as custom might have expected, she swore she would have justice and her fight became an international cause celebre.
The council leader, a council member and the four men accused of carrying out the rape at gunpoint, were at first sentenced to death by a local anti-terrorism court. But five of them were later acquitted on appeal and another had his sentence cut to life. In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld their acquittal. Ms Mai has been waiting since then to petition to review that decision.
“I have suffered for 17 years so I will keep coming back to this court again and again as long as it takes. I can’t stand down,” she said last week.
Mai remained in her Punjab village after the attack and used her compensation and donations to set up a girls’ school and refuge. Several of the children of her alleged rapists have attended the school, she said.
“The parents don’t come, but other people from their families do come. They just find out about the kids’ education, they just want to inquire. It’s professional.”
Her attackers had at first tried to reach a compromise settlement with her, but she said she was determined to fight through the courts. None of the men had shown genuine remorse, she believed.
