Pakistani Raped by Village Order Is to Visit U.S.

October 21, 2005- (NYT) Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani woman whose gang rape in 2002 on the orders of a village council caused international outrage, said Friday that she planned to visit the United States next week to receive an award from an American women's magazine.

During her trip, Ms. Mukhtar said, she also plans to help raise funds for the victims of the devastating earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in Pakistan.

"I have been invited by Glamour magazine," Ms. Mukhtar, 31, said in a telephone interview from Lahore, the city in eastern Pakistan from which she is to fly to the United States.

Glamour magazine is honoring women around the world who have struggled for women's rights in a ceremony on Nov. 2.

Ms. Mukhtar was scheduled to come to the United States in June to speak to a women's rights group, but President Pervez Musharraf barred her from traveling, contending that the visit would tarnish the country's image. His decision was met with protests by rights activists, and the restrictions were lifted after criticism from American officials.

A village council ordered the gang rape of Ms. Mukhtar, a frail woman with dark eyes, in June 2002 as a punishment for her younger brother's alleged illicit relations with a woman from a rival tribe, the Mastoi. Later investigations revealed that the boy had been molested by three Mastoi tribesmen, and the accusation against him had been a cover-up.

Ms. Mukhtar's struggle to bring her rapists to justice has exasperated Pakistani officials, who view her constant presence in the news media as an embarrassment.

As many other cases of rape surfaced in the country, Pakistani officials grew testier, and General Musharraf suggested last month that some Pakistani women were making false or exaggerated claims of rape as a way of obtaining financial support and visas from foreigners.

Ms. Mukhtar said she would make use of her time in the United States to appeal for donations for the victims of the recent earthquake, the worst in Pakistan's history.

"Whoever I will meet in the United States, I will appeal for help and donations for the people in Pakistan affected by the earthquake," she said.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/22/international/asia/22pakistan.html