LAHORE, Pakistan — Nine years after being gang-raped on the orders of a village council, Mukhtar Mai saw her struggle for justice end Thursday when Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered five of the six accused to be freed.
Mai, who has won international acclaim for her bravery in a deeply chauvinistic society, said the release of the men endangers her life. Originally 14 had been accused of taking part in the rape, which a tribal court of village elders ordered in 2002 as punishment because Mai’s brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival clan.
Human-rights groups said the verdict put all Pakistani women in danger.
Rape, so-called “honor” killings and other crimes against women are poorly investigated by Pakistani police and routinely go unpunished. At the same time, the nation’s courts have become aggressively activist in handling political cases.
The court judgment acknowledged that Mai had been raped and upheld the sentence against one of those accused, Abdul Khaliq. But the outcome means that just one of the 14 men she thinks were involved in the rape has been found guilty. A lower court already has commuted Khaliq’s death sentence to life in prison.
“I am scared these 13 people will come back to my village and harm me and my family,” Mai said, speaking from her village in the south of Punjab province. “The courts have given a free hand to feudal lords and other powerful people.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organization, recorded 791 honor killings of women in 2010. At least 26 of the women were raped or gang-raped before being killed. Rape is rarely reported, but at least 2,900 women came forward with rape complaints last year, according to the group.
