Mukhtar Mai

Below s a letter to the editor that appeared in today’s (June 23, 2005) Dawn.

Good points are raised, and the NGO’s should take heed. But what about sr. Mai?
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MAHJABEEN ISLAM, in her article ‘Image and reality’ (June 21), has taken Gen Musharraf to task for his remarks on the NGOs and their motives in arranging Mukhtaran Mai’s tour abroad. It is not often that one agrees with Gen Musharraf and disagrees with Ms Mahjabeen, but the issue requires deeper scrutiny.

What was allegedly done to Mukhtaran Mai was barbaric and disgraceful in the extreme but it was not unique by any means. In the United States alone, according to Oprah Winfrey, one woman is reported raped every minute (not counting the many times more cases that go unreported).

She also notes that 25 per cent of all the children in the US have been molested, mostly by members of the family or by priests and 25 per cent of the wives are victim of violence by their husbands. In her book, Death By Fire: Sati, Dowry Death, and Female Infanticide in Modern India, Mala Sen records that in the Indian state of Bihar alone more than 160,000 female infants are murdered at birth every year because their parents consider women to be a burden as they are not breadwinners.

We find neither the Americans rushing to parade their molested women around the world, nor the Indians splashing their brutality on TV screens and in the press abroad. They deal with the issues in the best way they can, at home, where they belong.

All that Mukhtaran Mai’s visit will achieve, apart from some donations for her, is notoriety abroad for the Muslim societies, in general, and Pakistan, in particular. This is hardly the outcome most of Pakistan’s well-wishers would desire.

It will most likely have a negative effect, if any, on the state of women in the country. Those among us who are old enough will recall the fate of Bashir Masih, a Christian boy, who was paraded abroad in a similar fashion about 20 years ago. It did not do him much good in the end and only helped to alienate his community and created divisions in society that had not had existed before. Washing one’s dirty linen in public is never a good idea, least of all, in difficult and sensitive times such as we are experiencing now.

K. HUSSAN ZIA,
Mississauga, Canada