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Does Pakistan Have No Shame?
Anjum Naveed / AP Photo
Is Pakistan trying to force rape victim Mukhtaran Mai to drop her case? Fatima Bhutto reports on a campaign of intimidation.
In 2002, an illiterate woman named Mukhtaran Mai was punished for something her brother did. He committed the unforgivable crime of falling in love with a young woman outside his tribe. So, in accordance with tribal tradition, a local council of elders decided that instead of punishing him directly, his sister Mai would be gang raped and paraded across her small village of Meerwala half naked.
Five days after this rape occurred, Mai did the unthinkable: She pressed charges.
In parliament, a month after the women were buried alive, Zehri defended the killings as “part of our traditional customs.”
Her defiance of custom—reporting the rape instead of silently accepting it—made headlines worldwide. Nicholas Kristof and Time magazine championed her case. Glamour magazine declared Mai “Woman of the Year.” But now, the Pakistan government has shown that it holds her in considerably lower esteem.
A few days ago, Mai announced that Pakistan has been quietly pressuring her to drop her case against the men who raped her. Qayyum Jatoi, the Federal Minister of State for Defense Production (ignore the silly title, we have 60-odd redundant ministers in our bloated cabinet) wants Mai to quit her six-year battle, now in the Supreme Court. According to Mai, the minister telephoned her uncle and warned him that should she persist, the ministry would ensure that the court rules against her. Minister Jatoi has denounced Mai’s allegations as a ploy by her to garner “cheap popularity” in the media. He denies pressuring Mai to drop the case, of course. The trial is scheduled to start today.
Given Pakistan’s recent history, I’d give Mai the benefit of the doubt. This is a government that has only grown more sinister when it comes to the cause of women. The Pakistan People’s Party, of which Minister Jatoi is a member, has twice put a female prime minister in office, Benazir Bhutto, and still has fully never repealed the anti-women Hudood Ordinances, which were reformed by President Pervez Musharraf but still allow women to be imprisoned for crimes like adultery and premarital sex.
Responding to the government’s pressure, Mai said in a statement to The News, one of Pakistan’s leading English newspapers, that it was ironic this injustice was being meted out to her by Benazir’s party. But it’s not so ironic. In fact, for the PPP, it’s par for the course.
Sardar Israullah Zehri, a tribal leader and senator from Balochistan and a member of the PPP, took to the floor of parliament this past August to defend violence against women. Five women in his province had been buried alive for staining their family’s honor. (Reports from various human-rights groups indicate the number of women buried may actually be as high as ten.) No one knows who the women were; we have snippets—a first name here, a date of birth there—but they’ve been murdered terribly well, erased from public record.
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Fatima Bhutto is a graduate of Columbia University and the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is working on a book to be published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. Fatima lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.
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Fatima Bhutto is a graduate of Columbia University and the School of Oriental and African Studies. She is working on a book to be published by Jonathan Cape in 2010. Fatima lives and works in Karachi, Pakistan.
imranali
Thanks for a great piece Fatima. Sadly as a UK-born Pakistani, it's very apparent that such issues aren't restricted to Pakistan itself, but also Pakistani communities overseas.
My mother has been a schoolteacher of largely Pakistani kids here in the UK for over 20 years, and we've often heard of similar stories - albeit not as violent - that occur here also.
Something that I picked up, implicit within your story, was that one of the causative factors might be US politician's endorsement of successively criminal Pakistani elites.
I've long felt that the solutions to cultural and political change must emerge from Pakistanis themselves. Sadly, as an overseas Pakistani, I see little civic effort from urbane, educated, middle-class or affluent Pakistanis.
In conversations with friends and family in the country, younger Pakistans seem either apathetic or lacking belief and hope in progressive change.
What do you feel might be the levers and influences to mobilise Pakistan towards moving beyond such practices?
Yankintex
When it comes to the oppression of wormen in many Islamic countries, where is the outrage, where are the street protests, where are the condemnations? Being saved for Israel's next military operation, obviously.
Gillman
75% of prisoners in Pakistan are women for being a rape victim
suzannewynn
This makes me sick how can we even consider being their ally while they treat women like dogs. I want to know why the world is not outrage over this kind of treatment towards women. Are we still considered second class citizens? Are we still considered the property of men?
Mugly067
Wow what a screwed up culture, you know some cultures become so poisonous the only choice is to eradicate them. Being that the Pakistani Govt is full of a bunch of corrupt nut jobs doesn't bode well for them, and given the tension with India and the US I can see this country becoming the next war zone.
jaclynde
Hopefully Mai will be the spear head of a movement that is long past due to start.
I, too, want to know where the protests are. Women in Western countries never faced oppression this bad, but still had to fight hard for equal rights. If women resist this, many will be killed...but I would rather die a slow and terrible death than ever be treated like a farm animal, the way these governments are shamelessly allowing to happen.
It is time for a revolt of mass scale on the part of these women.
When you've got nothing, there is nothing to lose.
finderj
It was once the tradition in many countries to leave unwanted or unhealthy newborns outside to die. It was once a tradition in many countries to bury or burn the surviving wife(wives) with the deceased husband. It was once the tradition in many countries for the male heir to the throne/land/business to kiill all his siblings at the death of the patriarch. Do Pakistani men and their government want to uphold those traditions too?
It has been said that all that is needed for the triumph of evil is for men of good will to do nithing. Maybe it should be restated as "women of goodwill". If any country that supports violence against women is going to outgrow those vile, mysogynist 'traditions', it will be because women in those countries are willing to risk torture and death to be free.
manticore
A quick update...Mukhtar Mai case was adjourned 'without a date' today - effectively the judiciary have put it on the back burner indefinitely. MM is happy about this and immensely grateful to her friends and supporters around the world for their support. And how do I know this? Well, I am the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mukhtar Mai Women Welfare Organisation, and spoke to her immediately after the hearing this morning.
warreno
'In parliament, a month after the women were buried alive, Zehri defended the killings as "part of our traditional customs."'
Remember, if it's done in the name of religion, it's to be respected and treated with reverence.
It's not patriotism that's the last refuge of scoundrels. It's God.
aluxeterna
I have some letters to write to Biden and Lugar.
Zephyr
Thank you for giving voice to the women of Pakistan.
lordastral
Well, what do you expect? Pakistan hasn't changed, and it won't change. And the Pakistanis that come to the USA are importing that poisonous outlook towards women with them. Last year in Texas two teenage Pakistani girls were murdered by their own father for the sin of talking to boys.
lordastral
I believe I am in error in my previous post, It does not appear that the father of those two girls but Pakistani, but Egyptian from what I have read. Of course, there are still plenty of pakistani cases of honor killings out there to choose from, so I won't retract my statement about the poisonous attitudes towards women.
Abraxas
Does Pakistan have no shame? Well, I am surely shameless... I want the drug tsar, I want the DEA, I want their skulls for chalices. I will drink their blood and knock down your towers.I will destroy your economies, until you learn to know ME. Give me this or suffer more for ME. Give ME this or I shall destroy everything you know!
financepk
Too much credit to Musharraf...Musharraf himself said on CNN
"Pakistani women claim RAPE to get immigration [to Canada]"
And also in a rape of Dr. Shazia by an Army Major at Sui Gas plant, Musharraf said that Army major is blameless even before the investigations started. Dr. Shazia had to escape to US to save her life
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