In the Name of Honor: A Memoir

I read 80% in one sitting at a restaurant. My only wish was if the author had taken more time to delve into the story and background. This book could have been 1000 pages for all the authors could have written. One of the books as to the answer why I love to read.

A través de esta muy bien narrada historia, tenemos la oportunidad de conocer otra cultura, otras costumbres y las atrocidades que se cometen contra la mujer en muchos países. Es una lectura muy alentadora, sobre todo para las mujeres que viven bajo la opresión de los hombres, de la cultura, de la religión o de las leyes. Una historia de valentía que bien vale la pena leer. Maribel Sánchez, Puerto Rico

Pakistan has three different `legal' systems: a religious one (Muslim), a governmental one (in the cities and developed areas) and a tribal one (in the villages). The (remote) villages are still a kind of feudal society, controlled by mighty clans and upper castes with the help of the police and religious leaders. Their `legal' system can be summarized as `an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'. The fate of women in this society is not less than barbarous. Men want to keep their women in ignorance. There are no schools for girls, who cannot learn to read and to write. As Mukhtar Mai writes, `women are less important than goats, less important than slippers a man throws away.' Because her young brother (12 years of age) had spoken to a female member of a reigning clan (the accusation was later turned into `sexual relation without the sanctity of marriage'), Mukhtar Mai was sacrificed by her family and gang-raped in front of the whole village. While suicide would have been the normal outcome of this humiliation, Mukhtar Mai chose to fight against her assaulters and introduced a formal complaint in a district court. Her case became headline news all over Pakistan. Her courageous behavior triggered a revolution in her country against the repression of women. Fifty percent of all Pakistani women have been forced into marriage, violated, used as objects of exchange or raped. This book gives a terrible picture of a feudal society where we all come from. `Feudal power begins with land and ends with rape.' This book is a must read for all those who want to understand who we are and in which world we are living in.

I felt sick reading this book. It made me realize the perversion that gets called "justice" in many parts of the world. Mukhtar Mai is probably one of the very few women who has actually had the courage to talk about her ordeal... a gang rape masquerading as punishment for an honour crime supposedly committed by her brother. The book describes the Pakistan tribal justice system in a simple and lucid style. She is neither emotional nor dramatic about the events but attempts to describe what she went through and the odds that she had to overcome to fight the system. This book is amazing!

This is an astounding story of a simple ordinary Pakistani woman raised in poverty and illiteracy, who has courageously managed to fight against the violence and gender discrimination directed at her and countless other women, with an insistence on justice, education, and gender equality. Mukhtar Mai, who herself has been a victim of one of the many `honor punishments' still widely prevalent in rural Pakistan, was 'justifiably' gang-raped as a punishment for a crime neither she nor her family committed. To have such a rape-victim in the family is considered a social taboo and most of the women who are in similar situations end up committing suicides. But Mukhtar Mai did something different. In spite of getting thoughts to commit suicide, she chose the more difficult path - she decided to live and fight against the injustice inflicted upon her and her family. With the help of the media and various national and international NGOs, Mukhtar Mai's case gained worldwide popularity and in a matter of days a poor illiterate woman living in absolute obscurity in one of the remotest parts of Pakistan gained international fame. This story is a personal rendition of the many trials and tribulations Mukhtar Mai has gone through in the process of obtaining justice in one of the most chauvinistically male-favored justice systems in the world. It is also a story of a stupendous victory at a personal level wherein Mukhtar Mai uses the aid she gets from all over the world to establish a school in her village so that girls living in her village and the surrounding villages can use literacy and education to fearlessly protect themselves from similar injustices. This book would obviously be any feminist's favorite but more than that it is a must-read for anyone interested in the sociological and gender-related issues in the subcontinent.