Mai meets Cristina Rocca, calls for end the Hadood Ordinance
By Khalida Mazhar - PakistanTimes.net Foreign Correspondent

NEW YORK (US): Mukhtaran Mai of Pakistan met the Assistant Secretary for Foreign Affairs for South-Asia Ms Cristina Rocca in Washington Tuesday. An NGO office bearer Dr. Amna was also present at the meeting.

Mukhtaran Mai appealed the US authorities to use their influence for repealing the Hadood Ordinance. She demanded release of all women arrested under Hadood ordinance.

Sources close to Mai told 'PakistanTimes.net' that Mukhtaran Mai presented an eight-point program for the reforms of human rights and relevant laws.

Later in the evening, the now-famous rape victim and women’s rights campaigner spoke at a meeting hosted by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders, among others.

Mai’s visit to the United States has been organised by ANAA, the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Women. Mai arrived in Chicago from Pakistan on October-23, addressed a meeting at Madison University the next day, spoke at the Islamic Centre, Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October-25, followed by another speaking engagement at Madison, Wisconsin.

She returned to Chicago for another public address on October-29. Pakistani rape victim Mukhtaran Bibi has been honoured by US magazine Glamour as its Woman of the Year.

Receives Award

And tonight, the 31-year-old Mai got the 'Woman of the Year' Award. She also received $20,000, half of which she will donate to rape victims’ care. The award was presented at a ceremony in New York alongside 11 other nominees including actress Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Glamour magazine said Mai was being honoured for "her incredible courage and optimism in the face of terrible violence." She is due to address a public meeting in New York on November-5 before returning home on November-12.

'I Can Survive'

Dr Amna Buttar of ANAA, the Mukhtaran Welfare Organisation and ANAA have launched a fund named ‘I Can Survive’ to be used to strengthen the voice of survivors like Mukhtaran, Shazia Khalid, Sonia Naz and many who are “never heard by the outside world”.

The fund will be used to organise a network of survivors and to assist in the rehabilitation and support of victims of violence. She called Mukhtaran Mai a woman of indomitable courage and spirit.

ANAA said Mukhtaran Mai, an “icon of the bravery and courage” of Pakistani women, had come to America to share her story of survival, courage and bravery with the hope that all who hear her would focus their attention on all those women and children who desperately need help.

Without any legal and social safeguards or economic opportunities, the women who have been rendered homeless by the October earthquake face the spectre of being “persecuted by a system that does not prioritise their welfare”.

Mai's Optimism

Mukhtaran Mai told the meeting she addressed in Madison that she was no longer alone, because the “whole world is with me”.

She said since the day she had raised her voice against male oppression, not a single woman had been raped in her area, nor had any village council passed the kind of orders that had been passed against her.

She told the meeting that women who feared abuse at the hands of men had learnt to warn them off by saying that if they did not desist, “we will go and report this to Mukhtaran Mai”.

Mai who emerged as a global figure after having been targeted with the heinous act of gang-rape under the orders of a centuries-old tribal system of assemblage [Jirga] in a secluded village of southern Punjab, is now-a-days on almost 2-week visit of the United States at the invitation of a NY-based magazine which gave her ‘Woman of the Year’ award tonight, Wednesday.

Perspective

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, including an NY magazine which gifted 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 said that while in New York, Mai, who once lived in a mud-brick house in her ancestral abode, is 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 received this award with a galaxy of intellectuals present on the occasion.

People from other segments of society including journalists were among those, who had 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.

Warns 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's Visit to USA

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 
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http://pakistantimes.net/2005/10/22/top17.htm●