REPORTER: Elizabeth Tadic
It's early morning in rural Pakistan I'm travelling deep into tribal territory to Meerwala a poor and remote village in the southern Punjab. This is a region ruled by feudal landlords where women have few rights and are commonly raped to restore male honour. Out here, justice is meted out by the panchayat a group of tribal elders.
And this is Mukhtar Mai. Three years ago she was gang-raped at gunpoint on the orders of the panchayat punishment for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from another clan - a charge later proved false. The rape caused outrage in Pakistan and around the world.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): It's very difficult. I have the whole world standing with me, but I still face many hardships. How can an ordinary woman like me cope with this?
DIPLOMAT: We have hope that justice will be done in the Supreme Court.
Custom dictates a rape victim should suffer in silence or commit suicide in shame, but Mukhtar Mai was defiant.
REPORTER (Translation): What dangers do you face now?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Many, now that I've spoken out.
Her campaign to end violence against women has provoked a political and social storm in Pakistan.
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR, ADVISOR TO PM ON WOMENS AFFAIRS: We are in the process of changing the whole system. But it's the mindset that is most challenging. Our government cannot succeed overnight - we need more time.
ASMA JAHANGIR, CHAIR, HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: Where was the state when a woman was being raped in broad daylight and many people knew about it?
Mukhtar Mai has told her story of rape and degradation many times to the world's media.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Sometimes I get very angry when I have to repeat the whole story. Everyone already knows everything, but they still keep asking. After all Im a human being.
FAROOK: She feels that there's no way...
Interviews with Mukhtar are conducted with the local police chief close by.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): He knows everything. Ask him.
The Pakistani authorities want to keep a close eye on this brave and controversial woman. Outside her home, there's a police checkpoint, manned 24 hours a day supposedly because she receives many death threats. Mukhtar Mai and her family have bitter enemies here.
ALLAH DITTA (Translation): We curse them every day. We say to their faces, "As you have ruined our house, may God ruin your house." May they suffer as we suffer.
This is Allah Ditta, the wife of one of the accused rapists. She lives just 100 metres away from Mukhtar Mai. She's from the Mastoi clan, once the wealthiest and most powerful in the village. All 14 men accused of Mukhtar Mai's rape are from this family.
TAJ MAI, MOTHER (Translation): She made it up!
Taj Mai is the mother of four of the rapists. Despite all the evidence to the contrary she denies that her family members are guilty.
TAJ MAI (Translation): For four years my sons have been in jail. I don't even have enough money to travel to the jail and visit my sons. We don't even have a quarter of a rupee to feed these kids.
I ask Taj Mai to take me to the room where the rape was reported to have occurred and I notice these photos of her sons.
TAJ MAI, (Translation): Did they ever look like men who would look at a woman lustfully? I can't even look at them!
Six of Taj Mai's family were sentenced to death for the rape, but five were acquitted on appeal. Amidst public outrage, they've been detained again and Mukhtar Mai is fighting to have the convictions upheld.
It's a long way from the village of Meerwala to the plush Marriott Hotel in the capital, Islamabad. Mukhtar Mai has been invited here for an international conference on violence against women, organised by the government. The President, General Pervez Musharraf, is working hard to counter the bad publicity surrounding her case.
GENERAL PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: There are delegates who have come from about 36 countries globally from all across the world. I welcome you to this conference. I also would like to especially welcome Mukhtar Mai who is sitting in the front here.
It soon becomes clear the President is very unhappy about Pakistan being in the global spotlight for violence against women.
GENERAL PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: I've said it over and over again, but since I have written a sentence... do not wash your dirty linen outside. All others are washing their dirty linens inside their own countries. Let us also wash our dirty linen within Pakistan. If this issue is to be raised internationally, let us raise it, we will be a part of it, we will be supportive, if it's talking about violence against women all across the world. But never single out Pakistan. That I will always oppose with all my power, with all my will.
President Musharraf has been true to his word. In June, Mukhtar Mai was invited to speak about her plight in the US. The President personally ordered the confiscation of her passport. He then added her name to an official list of people banned from travelling overseas - a list usually reserved for criminals and political enemies.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Why can't I go overseas? How am I a threat? They go overseas every week? What sort of danger do I pose?
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR: We have introduced her to the world media, by the way. I have been arranging her interviews with the BBC and Voice of America sitting here in this office. So why would we stop her from going to the United States of America?
Nilofar Bakhtiar is Adviser to the Prime Minister on Women's Affairs. She says the government acted to protect Pakistan's image.
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR: But this was not an invitation by the government of America, this was an NGO that the government did not think was promoting the image of our country, and I think the president of the country has a right to make that decision and so he stopped her from going.
ASMA JAHANGIR: What is the meaning of not letting Mukhtar Mai speak about what happened to her? Where is the shame?
The muzzling of Mukhtar Mai has outraged the head of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, Asma Jahangir.
ASMA JAHANGIR: They were the ones who arrested her, they were the ones to put her on an exit control list so that she cannot go outside of the country. I think that this is not the kind of behaviour that anybody expects from a government that claims to be a woman-friendly government.
Even at the conference in Islamabad, the government does all it can to keep Mukhtar Mai away from media scrutiny. While the other delegates are staying at the 5-star Marriott, Mukhtar Mai has been put up at a women's shelter.
POLICE GUARD Mai is staying in the crisis centre instead of the hotel.
Although a security guard is always present, I'm hoping she'll speak more freely away from the conference.
REPORTER: How come you're staying here at the crisis centre and not the Marriott with all the other delegates?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): I don't know. This was their arrangement. It was a sudden invitation. I don't know if they could have organised a hotel for me.
While Mukhtar Mai goes to her room for the night the other conference delegates attend a VIP dinner at the Prime Minister's residence. It's a glittering affair that attracts film directors, entrepreneurs, bankers, the political and ruling elite.
MINISTER: She's got so much footage I hope you're going to use it well.
I see the Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, and his entourage approaching. It's my chance to ask him a few questions.
REPORTER: Excuse me.
PRIME MINISTER SHAUKAT AZIZ: Yes Ma'am.
REPORTER: My name is Elizabeth Tadic from SBS Television in Australia a program called 'Dateline'... I want to know why Mukhtar Mai wasn't invited to his party.
SHAUKAT AZIZ: I think she was invited I don't know whether she could come tonight, because she was busy or otherwise. We also had a space restriction too because of the rain outside we had to move people in, but she's been to my house. Oh yes. She was at the conference and she may be busy but she has been to see me and we've discussed her problems and the government has gone out of its way to help her.
REPORTER: Mukhtar Mai has not yet got justice because she's still going through the courts. How long will that take?
SHAUKAT AZIZ: But that's up to the court system in any country. She's in appeal in the High Court, and the case is being heard. So it will take time but in every country it's different. Justice delayed is justice denied, but if justice is rushed too fast, then you may get injustice.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): We've been fighting this case for three years and I have the support of the whole world yet still I've not had justice. They haven't been punished.
SHAUKAT AZIZ: What is good for a woman in Australia, may or may not be good for a woman here and vice versa. So I think one has to look at this with an open mind. The key is that that the womenfolk like Mukhtar Mai should feel if I have a problem, I can speak out and I'll be heard.
Speaking out in Pakistan is not so easy, especially if you're a woman. The next day at the conference, delegates learn just how difficult it is to stand up and be heard.
NILOFAR BAHJTIAR: Please sit down! Any cultural biases which need to be addressed here, stuff like that is what we are looking for.
The Prime Minister's Adviser for Women's Affairs wants to keep the discussion general but the delegates want to talk about specific cases.
DELEGATE: I just want to ask her a question.
This delegate asks about a woman who was killed by her son after she told a talkback radio show she'd been brutalised by her husband.
DELEGATE: She was shot five times by her son, she became paralysed from the neck down and finally she died.
NILOFAR BAHJTIAR: I have all my sympathies for that woman but what happens is there are a few cases everywhere in the world which somehow get the media hype and get picked up by the civil society. And then we forget all about the rest of the women who are suffering in the same country.
This Chinese businesswoman also gets silenced by the conference organisers. She lives in Islamabad and has turned up to complain about being assaulted by Pakistani police. Security personnel and conference staff quickly gather round to stop me from finding out more.
MAN: This is not a place for a press conference!
IRSHAD: This is part of the conference. Now she has come with a grievance. Don't do this! This is intimidation!
Embarrassed by my presence, the officials eventually take her statement.
WOMAN: I want to get better justice in Pakistan.
ASMA JAHANGIR: The government wants to portray that they are actually advancing the cause of women and there's a great fanfare on what they call "enlightened moderation" or whatever it is.
Actually deep down it's a hard government. It's really what we call an iron fist in a velvet glove.
Soon after the conference ended, President Musharraf sparked international controversy when he made the following comments to the 'Washington Post'.
AUDIO, PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: Also this has become a money-making concern. Do you know what is going on in Islamabad, people say that if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada, citizenship and be a millionaire get yourself raped. It's the easiest way of doing it.
MUKHTAR MAI, (Translation): I'm hurt by this statement made by President Musharraf concerning women. It's very sad when they say women do this just to try to get a visa for Canada or America.
Over the last three years I've received many offers to go abroad with my entire family. How could any woman do such a thing to get a visa?
Despite offers to go abroad and speak about her plight, Mukhtar Mai is staying put for the time being.
NASSIM (Translation): Why do the police come and eat at Mukhtar Mai's house?
Later I discover more evidence of the government's iron fist. Her mail is being tampered with.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): I feel very bad. For the last four months they open my mail and violate my privacy. I have complained to the authorities but nothing happens. No ion has been taken.
The government says that far from harassing Mukhtar Mai, it has given her special treatment.
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR: The President provided school, roads network, electricity and water to that village. We have provided a police check post next to her house, to provide security for Mukhtar Mai. Wherever she travels around the country she gets a police escort, so this is the kind of treatment that not even a federal minister gets in Pakistan.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): We've been given electricity, schools and what else?
MAN (Translation): Roads and so on.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Roads. We've been given police too. Too many things.
REPORTER: Did the government offer or did you ask for this?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): We asked for those things.
REPORTER: So it seems now you can ask for many things and the government is listening to you?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Yes.
Mukhtar Mai is determined to put her profile and public support to good use. Thanks to her, the village finally has a school. She funded it with compensation money from President Musharraf, and with donations from abroad. Before, these children had to walk 6km to school or simply not go.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): There were no schools in this area, especially for girls. Other women were trying to stop me, saying, "We don't want it in our town." I think education is very important, especially for the poor. Girls don't know what their rights are or how to use their rights.
Mukhtar Mai also plans to build a high school, a hospital and a women's crisis centre. She's determined that through education and reform Pakistani women will no longer have to suffer in silence.
It's early morning in rural Pakistan I'm travelling deep into tribal territory to Meerwala a poor and remote village in the southern Punjab. This is a region ruled by feudal landlords where women have few rights and are commonly raped to restore male honour. Out here, justice is meted out by the panchayat a group of tribal elders.
And this is Mukhtar Mai. Three years ago she was gang-raped at gunpoint on the orders of the panchayat punishment for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from another clan - a charge later proved false. The rape caused outrage in Pakistan and around the world.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): It's very difficult. I have the whole world standing with me, but I still face many hardships. How can an ordinary woman like me cope with this?
DIPLOMAT: We have hope that justice will be done in the Supreme Court.
Custom dictates a rape victim should suffer in silence or commit suicide in shame, but Mukhtar Mai was defiant.
REPORTER (Translation): What dangers do you face now?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Many, now that I've spoken out.
Her campaign to end violence against women has provoked a political and social storm in Pakistan.
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR, ADVISOR TO PM ON WOMENS AFFAIRS: We are in the process of changing the whole system. But it's the mindset that is most challenging. Our government cannot succeed overnight - we need more time.
ASMA JAHANGIR, CHAIR, HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION: Where was the state when a woman was being raped in broad daylight and many people knew about it?
Mukhtar Mai has told her story of rape and degradation many times to the world's media.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Sometimes I get very angry when I have to repeat the whole story. Everyone already knows everything, but they still keep asking. After all Im a human being.
FAROOK: She feels that there's no way...
Interviews with Mukhtar are conducted with the local police chief close by.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): He knows everything. Ask him.
The Pakistani authorities want to keep a close eye on this brave and controversial woman. Outside her home, there's a police checkpoint, manned 24 hours a day supposedly because she receives many death threats. Mukhtar Mai and her family have bitter enemies here.
ALLAH DITTA (Translation): We curse them every day. We say to their faces, "As you have ruined our house, may God ruin your house." May they suffer as we suffer.
This is Allah Ditta, the wife of one of the accused rapists. She lives just 100 metres away from Mukhtar Mai. She's from the Mastoi clan, once the wealthiest and most powerful in the village. All 14 men accused of Mukhtar Mai's rape are from this family.
TAJ MAI, MOTHER (Translation): She made it up!
Taj Mai is the mother of four of the rapists. Despite all the evidence to the contrary she denies that her family members are guilty.
TAJ MAI (Translation): For four years my sons have been in jail. I don't even have enough money to travel to the jail and visit my sons. We don't even have a quarter of a rupee to feed these kids.
I ask Taj Mai to take me to the room where the rape was reported to have occurred and I notice these photos of her sons.
TAJ MAI, (Translation): Did they ever look like men who would look at a woman lustfully? I can't even look at them!
Six of Taj Mai's family were sentenced to death for the rape, but five were acquitted on appeal. Amidst public outrage, they've been detained again and Mukhtar Mai is fighting to have the convictions upheld.
It's a long way from the village of Meerwala to the plush Marriott Hotel in the capital, Islamabad. Mukhtar Mai has been invited here for an international conference on violence against women, organised by the government. The President, General Pervez Musharraf, is working hard to counter the bad publicity surrounding her case.
GENERAL PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: There are delegates who have come from about 36 countries globally from all across the world. I welcome you to this conference. I also would like to especially welcome Mukhtar Mai who is sitting in the front here.
It soon becomes clear the President is very unhappy about Pakistan being in the global spotlight for violence against women.
GENERAL PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: I've said it over and over again, but since I have written a sentence... do not wash your dirty linen outside. All others are washing their dirty linens inside their own countries. Let us also wash our dirty linen within Pakistan. If this issue is to be raised internationally, let us raise it, we will be a part of it, we will be supportive, if it's talking about violence against women all across the world. But never single out Pakistan. That I will always oppose with all my power, with all my will.
President Musharraf has been true to his word. In June, Mukhtar Mai was invited to speak about her plight in the US. The President personally ordered the confiscation of her passport. He then added her name to an official list of people banned from travelling overseas - a list usually reserved for criminals and political enemies.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Why can't I go overseas? How am I a threat? They go overseas every week? What sort of danger do I pose?
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR: We have introduced her to the world media, by the way. I have been arranging her interviews with the BBC and Voice of America sitting here in this office. So why would we stop her from going to the United States of America?
Nilofar Bakhtiar is Adviser to the Prime Minister on Women's Affairs. She says the government acted to protect Pakistan's image.
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR: But this was not an invitation by the government of America, this was an NGO that the government did not think was promoting the image of our country, and I think the president of the country has a right to make that decision and so he stopped her from going.
ASMA JAHANGIR: What is the meaning of not letting Mukhtar Mai speak about what happened to her? Where is the shame?
The muzzling of Mukhtar Mai has outraged the head of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, Asma Jahangir.
ASMA JAHANGIR: They were the ones who arrested her, they were the ones to put her on an exit control list so that she cannot go outside of the country. I think that this is not the kind of behaviour that anybody expects from a government that claims to be a woman-friendly government.
Even at the conference in Islamabad, the government does all it can to keep Mukhtar Mai away from media scrutiny. While the other delegates are staying at the 5-star Marriott, Mukhtar Mai has been put up at a women's shelter.
POLICE GUARD Mai is staying in the crisis centre instead of the hotel.
Although a security guard is always present, I'm hoping she'll speak more freely away from the conference.
REPORTER: How come you're staying here at the crisis centre and not the Marriott with all the other delegates?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): I don't know. This was their arrangement. It was a sudden invitation. I don't know if they could have organised a hotel for me.
While Mukhtar Mai goes to her room for the night the other conference delegates attend a VIP dinner at the Prime Minister's residence. It's a glittering affair that attracts film directors, entrepreneurs, bankers, the political and ruling elite.
MINISTER: She's got so much footage I hope you're going to use it well.
I see the Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz, and his entourage approaching. It's my chance to ask him a few questions.
REPORTER: Excuse me.
PRIME MINISTER SHAUKAT AZIZ: Yes Ma'am.
REPORTER: My name is Elizabeth Tadic from SBS Television in Australia a program called 'Dateline'... I want to know why Mukhtar Mai wasn't invited to his party.
SHAUKAT AZIZ: I think she was invited I don't know whether she could come tonight, because she was busy or otherwise. We also had a space restriction too because of the rain outside we had to move people in, but she's been to my house. Oh yes. She was at the conference and she may be busy but she has been to see me and we've discussed her problems and the government has gone out of its way to help her.
REPORTER: Mukhtar Mai has not yet got justice because she's still going through the courts. How long will that take?
SHAUKAT AZIZ: But that's up to the court system in any country. She's in appeal in the High Court, and the case is being heard. So it will take time but in every country it's different. Justice delayed is justice denied, but if justice is rushed too fast, then you may get injustice.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): We've been fighting this case for three years and I have the support of the whole world yet still I've not had justice. They haven't been punished.
SHAUKAT AZIZ: What is good for a woman in Australia, may or may not be good for a woman here and vice versa. So I think one has to look at this with an open mind. The key is that that the womenfolk like Mukhtar Mai should feel if I have a problem, I can speak out and I'll be heard.
Speaking out in Pakistan is not so easy, especially if you're a woman. The next day at the conference, delegates learn just how difficult it is to stand up and be heard.
NILOFAR BAHJTIAR: Please sit down! Any cultural biases which need to be addressed here, stuff like that is what we are looking for.
The Prime Minister's Adviser for Women's Affairs wants to keep the discussion general but the delegates want to talk about specific cases.
DELEGATE: I just want to ask her a question.
This delegate asks about a woman who was killed by her son after she told a talkback radio show she'd been brutalised by her husband.
DELEGATE: She was shot five times by her son, she became paralysed from the neck down and finally she died.
NILOFAR BAHJTIAR: I have all my sympathies for that woman but what happens is there are a few cases everywhere in the world which somehow get the media hype and get picked up by the civil society. And then we forget all about the rest of the women who are suffering in the same country.
This Chinese businesswoman also gets silenced by the conference organisers. She lives in Islamabad and has turned up to complain about being assaulted by Pakistani police. Security personnel and conference staff quickly gather round to stop me from finding out more.
MAN: This is not a place for a press conference!
IRSHAD: This is part of the conference. Now she has come with a grievance. Don't do this! This is intimidation!
Embarrassed by my presence, the officials eventually take her statement.
WOMAN: I want to get better justice in Pakistan.
ASMA JAHANGIR: The government wants to portray that they are actually advancing the cause of women and there's a great fanfare on what they call "enlightened moderation" or whatever it is.
Actually deep down it's a hard government. It's really what we call an iron fist in a velvet glove.
Soon after the conference ended, President Musharraf sparked international controversy when he made the following comments to the 'Washington Post'.
AUDIO, PERVEZ MUSHARRAF: Also this has become a money-making concern. Do you know what is going on in Islamabad, people say that if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada, citizenship and be a millionaire get yourself raped. It's the easiest way of doing it.
MUKHTAR MAI, (Translation): I'm hurt by this statement made by President Musharraf concerning women. It's very sad when they say women do this just to try to get a visa for Canada or America.
Over the last three years I've received many offers to go abroad with my entire family. How could any woman do such a thing to get a visa?
Despite offers to go abroad and speak about her plight, Mukhtar Mai is staying put for the time being.
NASSIM (Translation): Why do the police come and eat at Mukhtar Mai's house?
Later I discover more evidence of the government's iron fist. Her mail is being tampered with.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): I feel very bad. For the last four months they open my mail and violate my privacy. I have complained to the authorities but nothing happens. No ion has been taken.
The government says that far from harassing Mukhtar Mai, it has given her special treatment.
NILOFAR BAKHTIAR: The President provided school, roads network, electricity and water to that village. We have provided a police check post next to her house, to provide security for Mukhtar Mai. Wherever she travels around the country she gets a police escort, so this is the kind of treatment that not even a federal minister gets in Pakistan.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): We've been given electricity, schools and what else?
MAN (Translation): Roads and so on.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Roads. We've been given police too. Too many things.
REPORTER: Did the government offer or did you ask for this?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): We asked for those things.
REPORTER: So it seems now you can ask for many things and the government is listening to you?
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): Yes.
Mukhtar Mai is determined to put her profile and public support to good use. Thanks to her, the village finally has a school. She funded it with compensation money from President Musharraf, and with donations from abroad. Before, these children had to walk 6km to school or simply not go.
MUKHTAR MAI (Translation): There were no schools in this area, especially for girls. Other women were trying to stop me, saying, "We don't want it in our town." I think education is very important, especially for the poor. Girls don't know what their rights are or how to use their rights.
Mukhtar Mai also plans to build a high school, a hospital and a women's crisis centre. She's determined that through education and reform Pakistani women will no longer have to suffer in silence.