Pakistan, land, gold, women

A little old but i was reading it and found it interesting...

From The National February 28 and March 1, 2006

Correspondent: Terence McKenna
Producer: Michelle Gagnon
Consulting Producer: Nazim Baksh

There is much about life in rural Pakistan that has not changed for hundreds of years. In the countryside, you can still find tribes of nomads, the families of shepherds who range back and forth over the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The children don't go to school; most are illiterate.

In the rural areas, the predicament of women is especially precarious.

Young girls are routinely sold off into virtual slavery by their families. They are sometimes offered up to settle a dispute over land or insults to family honor.

Women are often raped to settle a score.

Mukthar Mai

That is what happened to Mukhtar Mai, now one of the leading crusaders for women's rights in Pakistan.

She was living a poor but happy life in the small town of Meerwala in Southern Punjab.

The trouble began four years ago when her younger brother, Shakur, was accused of making improper advances towards the daughter of one of the feudal landlords in the area, the Mastoi family.

Mukthar Mai was ordered to apologize for her brother in front of a panchayat, a local tribal council set up to mediate disputes. These panchayats are usually dominated by powerful feudal families and mete out justice according to their own rules.

Mukthar felt that she had to go.

"People who don't listen to them and don't obey them will be beaten up...or sometimes even killed," she says.

Maulvi Abdul Razak

The imam in Meerwala, Maulvi Abdul Razak was a witness to what happened when Mukhtar Mai was summoned before the tribal council.

He came over to the Mastoi family house when he heard there was trouble. He says that when Mukhtar arrived at the Mastois to apologize for her brother…they attacked her.

"The girl was dragged to a room in that house. One Mastoi brother named Halik was holding a pistol. First she was beaten and then she was raped several times by them. She was kept in that house for four days."

In Pakistan, tradition dictates that a woman who has been raped is forever shamed. Mukhtar Mai says that her first instinct after being gang raped was to commit suicide.

"There was pesticide spray. I was going to drink it, but my mother stopped me." Mukhtar says. "At that point I said either you have to let me die or you have to help me seek justice. My mother said, ‘Whatever you want to do I will be with you.'"