Mukhtaran Bibi
Even Mukhtaran Mai would have never thought that one day she will become an international figure, whose life’s story would appeal a Hollywood director in such a way that he will be forced to make a motion picture based on the story of her life. All those bad things that happened to Mukhtaran Mai need to be condemned as one cannot forget the amount of bravery she has shown to fight against those people who consider women nothing but the ceramic tiles fixed in their washrooms.
Jay Roach, the director of ‘Meet the Fockers’, along with Jennifer Perini has decided to produce a movie based on the Pakistani gang-rape victim Mukhtaran Mai.
Being a sensitive story, the movie is expected to generate some sort of controversy. But many expectations are there with this picture, because it may bring the much needed change in the mind-set of people in this part of the world.
The story begins when Shaqoor (the 12 year old brother of Mukhtaran Bibi at that time) was brutally sodomized by men of another tribe as they believed that Shaqoor was having some sort of sexual relations with a girl named Salma. As the issue passed on, Salma’s family demanded for an apology by Mukhtaran Mai on which she agreed. And as she reached the public gathering to make an apology, she was forcefully taken into a nearby stable where she was gang raped and after about an hour she was pushed out in only a torn shirt.
Such an incident is not an ordinary one for a woman as usually in such cases a woman tends to commit suicide because of the fear to face the society. But Mukhtaran Mai bravely took this issue to every Pakistani court, appealing against that inhuman act.
Though this is not the story of every Pakistani woman but it should not be the story of any woman. This is the root cause that motivated Mukhtaran Mai to fight against the evils of the society.
Shame, a documentry on Mukhtaran Mai, has previously been released by a Canadian director Muhammed Ali Naqvi in 2006. The documentry beautifully shows behind-the-curtain truth about how Mukhtaran Mai struggled for her rights, which actually are the very own rights of every woman. ‘Land, Gold and Women’ is another such effort that highlights the life of women living in rural Pakistan.
So far, no name or title for the upcoming movie on Makhtaran’s life has been decided yet.
Excellent article. Keep it up…