Pakistanis Join Rallies Marking Women’s Day
Thousands of Pakistani women took to the streets Wednesday for International Women’s Day to press for freedom, equal rights and an end to discriminatory laws.
In this city in the eastern province of Punjab, 5,000 women rallied -- among them, Mukhtaran Mai, a woman who was gang-raped in 2002 on orders of a tribal council in a village near Multan, as punishment for her brother’s alleged affair with a woman from a higher-caste family. Mai drew international attention after she spoke publicly about her ordeal.
“I have dedicated my life to women’s rights. Wherever a woman is oppressed, I will go there and fight for her rights,” Mai told reporters at the rally, which was organized by a women’s rights group.
About 1,000 other women, mainly schoolgirls and college students, staged a demonstration in front of parliament in the capital, Islamabad, demanding that a law making it difficult to press rape charges be repealed. The law requires four witnesses to prosecute a rape case.
Thousands of cases of abuse against women are reported in Pakistan each year, including “honor killings” of women slain by male relatives because of accusations of adultery or because they wed without family consent.
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