Mukhtaran Mai gives birth to baby boy
Mai delivered the baby by Caesarian section two weeks prematurely in the central city of Multan, they added.
Mai, now 40, was gang raped in June 2002 on the orders of a village council as punishment after her younger brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival clan.
The boy was just 12 years old at the time of the incident in Meerwala town in central Multan district, some 360 kilometres southwest of the capital Islamabad.
Mai in March 2009 married police constable Nasir Abbas Gabol, who has five children from a previous marriage.
"It is a good news for both of us, I feel happy like any father and I thank Allah that Mai is OK," he said.
The baby, which is Mai's first, was born around 4:30 pm on Sunday at the private clinic of Doctor Naseem Akhtar Malik, staff nurse Asma Bibi said.
"The baby weighed 3.8 kg, both mother and child are OK," she said. The case was complicated because Mai was suffering from hepatitis B, she said.
Gabol, 33, said the baby had not been named. "We will select a name with the consent of our elders when we go back to our village Meeranwala," he said.
Mai won fame in the West as the cause celebre of oppressed women after her rape and subsequent fight for justice.
An anti-terror court previously sentenced six men to death for her rape, but the top court in Punjab province acquitted five of them in March 2005, and commuted the sentence for the main accused, Abdul Khaliq, to life imprisonment.
Earlier this year the Supreme Court decided to uphold the life sentence for Khaliq and release the five others.
Almost a thousand women were raped in Pakistan during 2010 while more than 2,000 were abducted and almost 1,500 murdered, according to the Aurat Foundation, an organisation working for the protection of women in the country.
A further 500 were the victims of "honour killings", murdered by relatives and fellow tribesmen who believe they had affairs.
COMMENTS (17)
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Congratulations to her and may the baby and she have a good life ahead.
what the name of baby ?
Oh he's cute! Congratulations!
To all who are questioning whether this news or not .. well it is ... and at last, it is a good one that this lady deserves to make the press with.
is that so important to know? or ET is running campaign for controlling population?
The fact that Mukhtaran Mai has Hepatitis B is classified patient information and should not have been made public. The fact that the nurse was callous enough to reveal it is sad but the fact that Express Tribune staff writers and editors are not aware of the concept of Protected Health Information (PHI) is worse. You guys should have known better than to exposure of such confidential information that might make Mukhtaran Mai vulnerable and subject to discrimination.
Please leave her alone....respect her privacy...
These are the injustices of thinking-structures of a (in)human society, when a victim of a heinous crime is again and again associated with her nightmarish experience......Stigmatisation till physical death!
@Ali: the birth of a child should ideally herald a new era, but under the circumstances where he is one of 6 and there is no change in laws regarding treatment of rape as a crime and its victims with some dignity, i don't see how this gives home, to rape victims or to children who would be brought up without sufficient resources
PS Mubarak to MukhtaraN Mai and family, May allah bless her son to grow up and be the change his mother is!
Yes it is news because it gives hope to the millions of women who are raped in our country!
This is news?
...and the point of this very important news item is???
Congratulations.