A Pakistani gang rape victim, whose case has been highlighted by international media, has been removed from a list of people barred from traveling abroad, the government said on Wednesday.
Mukhtaran Mai, who was gang raped on the orders of a traditional village council in 2002, had demanded that the government lift restrictions on her movements.
“On the instruction of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, the name of Mukhtaran Mai has been removed from the ECL,” Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sharpao told parliament, referring to an exit control list that prevents overseas travel.
“She is free to go anywhere. She can go wherever she wants,” he said.
Mai’s case provoked national outcry and focused international attention on the treatment of women in rural Pakistan. Human rights workers had wanted Mai to go abroad to speak on the plight of women in her country.
Aziz said last week any security measures were protective as Mai, 36, had expressed fears for her safety.
President Pervez Musharraf, who has been trying to project Pakistan as a moderate and progressive Muslim nation, has taken a personal interest in the case, saying it was tarnishing the country’s image overseas.
12 men ordered released
A high court in Punjab province on Friday ordered the release of 12 men connected to the case.
The original trial before an anti-terrorism court in 2002 found that Mai was gang-raped on the orders of a village council after her brother — who was 12 at the time — was judged to have offended the honor of a powerful clan by befriending a woman from their tribe.
Mai says the clan fabricated the story to cover up another incident in which her brother was allegedly sexually assaulted by men from the clan.
Six men were originally convicted of the crime and sentenced to death, but five were later acquitted after appealing to the Punjab court, which cited a lack of evidence. A sixth man had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
The provincial government subsequently intervened and ordered that the men be detained for three months pending the outcome of an appeal by the victim against the acquittal. Six men who served on the village council were detained at the same time.
Gang rapes and honor killings are common in feudal-dominated rural Pakistan, where brutal tribal customs sometimes hold sway.
