ISLAMABAD, 23 October 2005 — A Pakistani rape victim left for the United States yesterday to receive an award for courage. Mukhtaran Mai arrived at Lahore airport with police squad and her friend Nazim to board flight. No relative or representative of any NGO accompanied her.
Mukhtaran said she had no plans to stay in America. “I am a born Pakistani and prefer to live in my own country ... I am going to America to receive my award and will get back soon after,” she said.
Mukhtaran said she will use the trip to collect donations for victims of this month’s monster earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people in Pakistan.
Prominent among the past recipients of Sakharov Prizes are Nelson Mandela (1988), Aung San Suu Ky (1990), Tasleema Nasreen (1994) and Kofi Annan (2003) and US Sen. Hillary Clinton and former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
The prize, carrying a cash award of 50,000 euros, is given to exceptional individuals and organizations fighting against intolerance, fanaticism and oppression. It was launched in the 1988 in the name of Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov.
Mukhtaran won international fame but irked the government for speaking out about her gang rape. Mukhtaran, 36, has been declared Woman of the Year 2005 by Glamour, an American women’s magazine. She’s due to receive the award with a $20,000 cash prize on Nov. 2 in New York.
Mukhtaran braved social stigma by going public over her June 2002 assault, which was ordered by a village council in retaliation for her brother’s alleged affair with a woman from a higher-caste family.
Her case attracted international attention, and using donations from well-wishers, she has since set up a school for girls in her rural community. The legal case against her alleged attackers is still being heard in the Supreme Court.
In June, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf barred Mai from traveling to the United States at the invitation of a rights group fearing it would bring bad publicity to Pakistan, but later backtracked after Washington protested.
