After Mukhtar Mai was gang raped on the orders of a tribal court in Pakistan in 2002, local tradition dictated she was expected to commit suicide.

She defied her attackers and fought for justice. More than a decade on, she is still fighting for women's rights in Pakistan and inspiring many around the world.

Mai's "honor revenge" was carried out on the orders of a jirga -- a tribal assembly -- because her 12-year-old brother was wrongly accused, according to a subsequent investigation ordered by the Punjab governor, of improper relations with a woman from another tribe.

"They decided I should be punished against my brother's crime," Mai, now 39, told CNN through an interpreter. "They immediately acted upon that decision and dragged me out. That was the hardest moment of my life."

While the majority of rapes go unreported in Pakistan, according to Pakistani national newspaper The Express Tribune, Mai was determined not to stay silent.

"I was of the view that I must fight back to get my rights," said Mai. "First of all, there was the rape, and afterwards when I tried to call the police, I received death threats that I would be killed if I went to a police station.

"I sat inside the four walls of my home, but I was encouraged by well-wishers. My local community gave me the courage to fight back and go to the court."

"I decided that what happened to me should never happen to anyone else."

Initially, six men were sentenced to death for the rape or abetting the rape. However, in 2011, Pakistan's Supreme Court overturned all but one of the convictions and the men were freed.

Mai grew up in a small village in the Punjab region of Pakistan, where she never went to school and was forced into marriage at the age 13.