Two Pakistani women who say they were raped on the authorisation of a village council to avenge a landlord’s honour, say they would rather die than live with shame for the rest of their lives. In an interview on Friday at their makeshift mud house in the central province of Punjab, both expressed doubt that their powerful attacker would be punished, despite his arrest and those of the council members. "How can I show my face now? Either I will jump in a well or take some poison," said tearful 16-year-old Mumtaz Mai, recalling her ordeal last month.
In deeply Islamic Pakistan, rape brings considerable social shame on both the victim and her family. "I cannot go back to my parents’ house, I cannot go in front of my husband; God please just bury me in the ground now," said Mumtaz’s sister-in-law, Mudassan Mai. She said she had little hope of justice. "These are feudal people," she said. "The police belong to them, the courts belong to them, even the government belongs to them, whereas we don’t know where our next meal will come from."
However, while such crimes are not uncommon in rural Pakistan, this case has provoked considerable interest inside and outside the country. Police said on Friday they had arrested the landlord, two of his brothers and the three-member village council, or panchayat, that authorised the rape. All six were remanded in custody. The attack occurred on April 30 in the small village of Donga Naich after the landlord complained to the council that his honour had been sullied when the son of a poor farmer began a relationship with his daughter. The council members, all landlords themselves, ruled that Ghaffar, who uses only one name, could avenge his honour by having sex with the farmer’s daughter and daughter-in-law. Mumtaz said Ghaffar had burned their clothes and they had had to cover themselves with sheets to return home. On the way they heard celebratory drum beats and loudspeaker announcements saying that Ghaffar’s honour had been avenged.
Ghaffar and members of the council have made no comment but one of his brothers said on Thursday that the women had only been stripped and not raped. The two women were to be medically examined on Friday in a Multan hospital. In a notorious case two years ago that highlighted the plight of women in rural areas, four men were sentenced to death for a gang rape authorised by another central Punjab village council. Two council members accused of abetting the crime also received the death sentence while eight other council members were tried and acquitted. Their appeals are still before the courts. |