Mai gets the 'Woman of the Year' Award in NY Today
By Khalida Mazhar - PakistanTimes.net Foreign Correspondent

NEW YORK (US): Once an unidentified simple and sober villager and now the globally-known Mukhtar Mai arrived in New York on Sunday with a vow and assert to turn as the champion of women cause, at every cost.

Landing at the busiest JFK airport, Mai was received by the representatives of her host, an NY magazine which is to gift her ‘Woman of the Year’ award for Year-2005.

Later she drove to a high-status place, where she will be staying, possibly by November-5. Credible sources say that while in New York, Mai, who once lived in a mud-brick house in her ancestral abode, shall be staying in a posh Hotel as the guest of the host, who has managed this event.

The 'Woman of the Year' honour has by now been given only to just a few ladies, linked with the American polity in top position, as well as to some from elsewhere.

With cameras, raying high-voltage lights on her features to grasp maximum poses of the guest, Mai shall receive this award tomorrow, Wednesday at a ceremony, where the former President of the United States Bill Clinton shall introduce her to a galaxy of intellectuals.

People from other segments of society including journalists are among those, who have been invited to attend the unusual event.

Once, a docile inhabitant of a remote village in southern Punjab province of Pakistan clutched a worldwide repute, in a spur of moment, when her story of gang-rape hit the skies through media, at home and abroad.

The print and electronic media raced with a swift pace to disseminate the news item in an atypical way. This scenario eventually, took-out Mai from a state of isolation and placed her onto the horizons of the Orb with her visit abroad, the first-ever in her life, who which she, perhaps had never envisioned.

Cautions Men

Prior to becoming the recipient of the glamorous award, Mai addressed a function in New York late on Sunday with a vow that she has “become a symbol of hope” and justice for women in Pakistan.

“Now when men act harshly to their wives, they just need to say ‘I am going to tell Mukhtaran’ and that puts them in their place,” she told an audience at the University of Wisconsin, speaking through an interpreter.

Mai is on a tour of the US to be honoured by Glamour magazine as one of 12 women of the year and receive a $20,000 award.

Mai’s activism came in spotlight in 2002 when a tribal council [Jirga] sentenced her to be gang-raped to punish her family, because her 12-year-old brother supposedly had walked with a girl from another influential tribe.

Mai on US Visit

To recap earlier stories on Mai's visit to the United States, published by Pakistan's first independent daily E-newspaper, 'PakistanTimes.net' in its earlier editions, Click here:

http://pakistantimes.net/2005/10/31/top10.htm
http://pakistantimes.net/2005/10/30/top10.htm 
http://pakistantimes.net/2005/10/23/top9.htm 
&
http://pakistantimes.net/2005/10/22/top17.htm ●