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He added: “A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped.”

Musharraf denied making the comments but the interview had been taped. Mukhtaran was given a passport and used the money from her award to set up a school. She now produces a weekly blog on the problems of women in her village. As she cannot read or write, she tells her stories to a local journalist and they are printed on the website of the BBC Urdu service.

Some of the comments on her blog are from men complaining that she is damaging the image of Pakistan and that rape happens all over the world. But it is not just men who object to the changes. The new legislation has left women on both sides of the debate complaining.

“Yes, it’s a step forward but it’s not enough just to pick at the old law,” says Asma Jehangir, founding member of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission and co-founder of the country’s first all-woman law practice.

The bill was watered down to introduce a “fornication” clause which will continue to make it illegal for unmarried women to have sex. “The whole Hudood ordinance needs to be repealed,” Jehangir said.

On the other side, Razia Aziz, a woman MP from Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s biggest religious party, argues: “This law is not suitable for our culture. You in the West have your culture and we have ours. Besides, I don’t think we can change the life of women just by amending a law.”

Aziz, who does voluntary work among the female inmates of Peshawar prison, believes that, far from protecting women, the new law will result in an increase in honour killings.

“Many of the women are there because they have married without their parents’ permission and a parent has filed a case. If they are not in jail, they will be killed by their tribes. These are girls of 14, 16, and they beg us, ‘Don’t let us out or we will be killed’.”

There has been bitter wrangling in the Senate over the bill, which was passed in the lower house on November 15. “This is not only a sin but a rebellion against God,” insisted Professor Khurshid Ahmed, one of the leaders of the MMA alliance of religious parties.

Senator Sajid Mir, of the Muslim League, described it as “part of an overall strategy to turn the coast from Gwadar to Karachi into pleasure houses”.

The bill passed its final hurdle late on Thursday night and Musharraf is expected to sign it into legislation this week.

But there is widespread scepticism over his reasons. Imran Khan, the former cricket captain turned politician, is among many who believe Musharraf’s real aim has been to split the opposition in the run-up to a general election next year and to please the Americans.

“It’s nothing more than a tool to project his own image to the West,” Khan said.

Bokhari believes Musharraf should be congratulated, whatever his reasons. Gesturing at the victims’ records, she says: “Sadly, it’s too late for most of them.” Many of those who were not killed or jailed had committed suicide.

“We’ve still a long way to go,” adds Bokhari, much of whose time is spent helping “stove victims”, women whose families have tried to burn them to death after collecting a dowry.

And despite a wall full of awards from America, France and Germany, she had to close her women’s shelter in Rawalpindi earlier this year because of a lack of funding.

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