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November 24, 2005
An icon of courage
Mukhtaran Mai has been given the Women of the Year award by a prestigious US magazine, which is termed as a victory for the poor and oppressed women all over the world, writes
Zofeen Ebrahim
Quiet dignity envelopes her slender frame, downcast eyes and nearly inaudible speech. But the more Mukhtaran Mai withdraws into herself, the more she becomes the woman of steel who dared take on the might of the Pakistani state and extreme patriarchal attitudes.
Back from the United States, where she had gone to receive the Glamour magazine’s ‘Women of the Year’ award for this year, Mukhtaran retains every bit of her humility.
“It’s a victory for the poor, the world recognizes us,” she said. “I’m relieved. I’m not in this fight against the oppression of poor women alone, I have the whole world with me.”
At the magazine’s award ceremony in New York — where the illiterate Mai rubbed shoulders with nominees like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Goldie Hawn, Venus Williams, Christiane Amanpour and Mary Robinson — the citation said Mai was being honoured for “her incredible courage and optimism in the face of terrible violence.”
“If the world community hadn’t stood by her cause, she would have been yet another statistics. The women of Pakistan need more global support,” says Zohra Yusuf, a human rights activist.
Far from being another statistics in Pakistan’s long list of rights violations under the dreaded Hudood Ordinances, Mai’s case triggered off protests at home and abroad, which brought embarrassment for the government.
“I think the award shows recognition for a woman who has been able to turn from being a victim into a defender of human rights, through her own courage and refusal to remain silent about her ordeal,” says Kamila Hayat, joint director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Hayat believes Mai’s example has helped encourage women to report rape and demand justice. “The award highlights the positive fallouts from what is otherwise a terrible case of violence and injustice.”
Unlettered Mai has begun picking up an education and is now in grade three in the first ever school in the village that she established and where some 200 girls and 160 boys come to study. “I’m learning to read simple Urdu sentences but have still not been able to pick up any English,” she says in Punjabi.
“Both men and women will continue to suffer if we do not educate our children,’’ she says repeating what she told gatherings in the US. International attention, she believes, will prevent scores of women suffering Mai’s fate in future. Incidentally, thanks to the attention brought to Meerawala by Mai and her case, it now has electricity and a paved road.
Tasneem Ahmar, the director of UKS, an Islamabad-based NGO that highlights women’s portrayal in the media and who terms Mai an “icon of courage”, sees her as the “new and much-respected torch-bearer of the women’s movement in Pakistan’’. “Her receiving the prestigious award is an acknowledgement of her commitment that she made to herself and hundreds of women not only in her village but across Pakistan,” she adds.
Mukhtaran Mai intends to donate $5,000 from the $20,000 she received from Glamour to the earthquake victims. ‘’We are planning to buy blankets and other essentials and go to Kashmir and Hazara and distribute the relief goods ourselves,” says Naseem Akhtar her spokesperson.
She wants to set up a crises centre in Meerawala for women and also a non-profit women’s group called the Mukhtaran Mai Women’s Welfare Organization. “We need money and people to work for us and so this money will come in handy,” explains Naseem.
Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, a retired Supreme Court judge and author of the 1997 Report of the Commission of Inquiry for Women, which had then recommended the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances regretted that “widespread support for her by civil society is still missing.”
“Instead of committing suicide or living a life of anonymity, she took the bold step of raising aloud her voice against the feudalistic mindset in the country and becoming a symbol of great courage for our women,’’ Zahid says.
—Dawn/IPS
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