It seems just as international women’s rights take one step forward, they take ten steps back.

In Pakistan, 33 year old Mukhtaran Mai was raped by a gang of 14 men trying to punish her brother for having an affair with a woman “above his caste”. Thirteen of the thugs were acquitted in court and one got a life sentence. On appeal to the Pakistan Supreme Court, all thirteen men were ordered to be rearrested.

In the end, this is only barely a victory. The Pakistani government confiscated her passport and placed travel restrictions on her after she was invited to speak to human rights groups in the US. As President Musharraf explained it, they didn’t want her to “bad-mouth Pakistan”.

In India, 28 year old Imrana Ilahi was raped by her father-in-law and has now been ordered by the leading Muslim legal body in India to divorce her husband, leave her children and return to her parents home.

I feel murderous fits of rage when I read about stories like Mukhtaran’s and Imrana’s. The human race hasn’t figured out how to end the brutal, dehumanizing violence against women that occurs every hour on our planet, but at the very least, in 2005, we should have figured out that it is never ever ever the victim’s fault, no matter what religion you belong to.

I am going to go throw up now.