A Pakistani woman who won international acclaim for her courageous response to a brutal gang rape has given birth to a baby boy.

Mukhtar Mai, now aged 40, was gang raped in 2002 as punishment after her 12 year old brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a rival clan, Agence France Press reports.

Rejecting the stigma that is normally attached to rape victims in Pakistan, Mai campaigned to get her attackers convicted and became an outspoken critic of the oppression of women. She set up schools to educate girls in her district and also started a local ambulance service and a women's shelter, earning comparisons with Rosa Parks and Mother Teresa.

In 2009, Mai married a police officer who had guarded her in the wake of the attack. Their son, who has not yet been named, was born on Sunday afternoon. "I am blessed with a baby boy," Mai wrote on Twitter.