Dateline joins New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof as he reports on one Pakistani woman’s struggle for justice and her determination to change the lives of women around her.

Mukhtar Mai was gang raped in 2002, at the order of a tribal council in the eastern provice of Punjab. It’s my understanding that the rape was ordered to restore honor and punish Muktar’s family for her brother’s alleged indiscretion with a woman from a higher-caste family. via Glamour Magazine: A One-Woman War on Injustice (Note: Mukhtar Mai’s family says he’s completely innocent.)

via Glamour MagazineThe defiant Mukhtar Mai was featured as one of Glamour Magazine’s 2005 Women of the Year, for her efforts not only in surviving her gang rape but deciding not to commit suicide, which was expected of her, to restore the honor of her own family. This is a common expectation of women who are raped in many countries of the world.

Not only did Muhktar decide to press her case legally — with the support of her mother — but she won in court.

The Dateline feature follows Muhktar’s story including her use of the compensation money to fund a school for girls in Pakistan. In an interesting twist, Huff Po reported last March that Mukhtar Mai now the second wife of Nasir Abbas Gabol, a police officer who was assigned to protect her as her case gained notoriety.