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Pak’s Mukhtaran Mai ties the knot
WSN Bureau
 MEERWALA:
Pakistani gang-rape victim Mukhtar Mai, 37, who shunned custom and
rose to global fame by speaking out against her rapists, has defied
yet another local taboo by marrying the police constable who was
assigned to protect her and investigate her case in 2002.
In an interview
from Meerwala, in
Southern Punjab,
Mai confirmed that she has married Nasir Abbas Gabol, 30, after
refusing his hand for several years. She is his second wife.
“He says he
madly fell in love with me,” Mai said, adding that she had relented
only after Gabol threatened to kill himself if she did not agree.
Mai said she was also reluctant to trespass on Gabol’s existing
marriage, but agreed finally to become his second wife after the
first wife also implored her.
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Pakistani gang rape victim who won international acclaim as a
campaigner for women's rights has married, but not before she
ensured that justice is done to the man's first wife. At least
the variety of justice that she knows. |
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In the end, Mai
agreed but on a few conditions. Gabol had to transfer the ownership
of his ancestral house to his first wife, agree to give her a plot
of land and a monthly stipend of roughly $125.
“I will adjust
(to marriage) because the co-wife is very positive,” she said.
Mai was raped in
2002 after her teenage brother was accused of having an affair with
a girl from another tribe, the Mastoi Baloch, which had higher
social standing than her own. Her brother was captured, beaten and
sodomised by men from the Mastoi Baloch.
But, not
satisfied by this, a traditional village court ordered that Mukhtar
Mai be gang-raped as punishment. The case remains before the courts.
Unable to bear
the social stigma attached to them, Pakistani rape victims often
commit suicide, but Mukhtar Mai, also known as Mukhtaran Bibi,
decided to challenge her attackers and drag them to court, winning
international renown in the process.
Using the around
$8,000 awarded to her by the Pakistani government in 2002, she now
runs several schools, an ambulance service and a women’s aid group
in her village and has written an autobiography.
Mai insists that
marriage would not change her mission and she will continue to live
with her parents, and not move to Gabol's village.
25 March 2009
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