Malala addresses the UN

Alhamdulilah she is inspirational!

Hostility on the Internet

Women in Pakistan are being harassed and are encountering hostility via social networks on the Internet. At the same time, many women's rights activists see the web as a new way to further their work. By Marcus Michaelsen

If a Pakistani woman journalist denounces child abuse and sexual harassment on Twitter, it can happen that she is threatened with rape. "I've received vile, detailed messages from random strangers who decide to tell me my home address and then live out their rape fantasies online."

Another women's rights activist has experienced a similar response. "Almost every time I talk about taboo issues on Facebook, Twitter or my blog, I receive hundreds of hate comments. Most of these involve calling me an atheist, an evil woman and an agent of the West. Most of them tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about and should 'go back to the kitchen'."

Both women have published their experiences on the Pakistani 'Take Back the Tech' campaign website, which draws attention to the issue of violence against women and seeks to promote the active use of digital media by women. The campaign originated in 2006 as part of the Association for Progressive Communications, a network that promotes human rights and development with the help of new communications technologies.

Since then, branches have sprung up in more than 20 countries. Last December, the network launched an important activity that focussed on 'digital storytelling'. In a series of short videos and articles posted on the Internet, women spoke about their own experiences of violence and abuse, but also of self-assertion and personal maturity.

Attacks on women with strong opinions

Nighat Dad, managing director of the Digital Rights Foundation in Pakistan, has observed that as use of the Internet becomes more widespread, more women are taking part in online debates about politics, religion, and sexuality. "All this is challenging the status quo and stereo types in an online space where there is a visible dominance of male internet users. When they see it is hard to win the arguments with women, they start abusing them and challenge their intellect and brain power," she says.

Besides attacks against women with strong opinions, there are also new forms of harassment and abuse on the net. Take Back the Tech documents the case of a Facebook profile, that was spreading stolen private photos of a young Pakistani woman on the web accompanied by offensive comments. The photos then appeared on websites with personal ads or combined with pornographic images.

Women are also being secretly photographed or stalked with the use of mobile telephones. The journalist Saba Imtiaz described in an article how many Pakistani women are besieged with text messages from unknown men. They obviously get the telephone numbers either through random calls or covertly from delivery services or the staff of mobile telephone providers.

Of course, the new media only reflect the realities of society. Sexual violence against women is widespread in Pakistan. According to a poll conducted by the Dutch Rutgers World Population Foundation, 66 per cent of Pakistani women have at some time or another experienced violence. This is primarily attributed to poverty, lack of education, and social tension.

An additional problem is that in Pakistan's conservative society, the behaviour of women is closely linked to questions of honour and morality. Professor Farzana Bari, women's rights activist, has demanded in the Express Tribune newspaper that the perceptions of gender roles must be fundamentally altered in Pakistan. In order to combat violence against women, women need to be given greater financial, social, and legal support.

Yet, it was only in 2010 that a law against the harassment of women in the workplace was introduced. A law against domestic violence, on the other hand, has been delayed due to opposition from Islamic organizations, who have warned of an undermining of traditions and religious values.

Lack of discretion

Correspondingly, the means to act against harassment on the Internet are also limited. A proposed law on cybercrime, which has been under discussion for years, is concerned only with crimes such as fraud and data theft. The organization Bytes For All, which champions freedom of opinion on the Internet in Pakistan, also complains that the police and judicial authorities seldom display the necessary discretion in cases of sexual violence, whether online or elsewhere.

It is therefore all the more important to alert users to the risks. Bytes for All has created an interactive map that documents incidents of violence and harassment. In addition, the organization offers courses in online security. A poster campaign carried out on social networks calls for the use of digital media without restrictions.

It is not only a matter of counteracting self-censorship, which, according to Nighat Dad, is how many women react to slander and aggression on the net. References to religion and morality also offer the pretext for state intervention in the digital sphere. In May 2010, the government shut down access to Facebook for two weeks because a competition involving Mohammed caricatures was being held on a member's profile.

YouTube has also been blocked in Pakistan since an anti-Islamic video provoked angry protests in September. Although the furore has long since died down, the Pakistani parliament recently recommended extending the blackout of the Internet platform. Shahzad Ahmand, director of Bytes for All, warns of the misuse of religion to further politically motivated censorship. After all, amateur videos documenting corruption and human rights abuses in the country have frequently been uploaded to YouTube in the past.

Strategies against state control

Last year, a minor victory was achieved against the state's need to impose controls. The government had announced a call for bids to set up of a national Internet filtering system. The justification was based on the need to combat pornography and blasphemy and to protect national security. With a clever campaign and international support, Pakistani network activists managed to force a provisional suspension of the plan.

Farieha Aziz took part in the campaign. Together with the blogger Sana Saleem, the journalist founded the organization Bolo Bhi (Speak Louder). Both women make use of their media experience to campaign for women's rights and freedom of expression. According to Farieha Aziz, Twitter and Facebook have opened new doors for activists to get their messages across to the public. If an issue garners sufficient attention on the net, then other media will sit up and take notice.

At the same time, social networks can help to correct reports from the press and television. When reports of rape were published including the names of victims, protests in social networks succeeded in bringing about a change to this unethical editorial policy, says Aziz. Internet users reacted similarly to a broadcast by the television presenter Maya Khan, who asked young couples in public parks on camera if they were married or not. Khan was forced to apologise and was subsequently fired.

There are many aspects to the struggle for freedom of expression and equal rights in Pakistan. As these women activists have shown through their experiences, digital media can serve both as a tool and a venue for action.

Source 

The Cost of Being a “Real” Pashtun Woman

By writing on Pashtun women’s plight with the hands of social stigmas, I am not arguing thatnon-Pashtun women are free of such problems. Rather, writing on such issues means that we have to find the courage to face the reality and speak up about it; to come out of a denial mode. Unless we speak out against our problems, we will not be able to think critically and find solutions for them. This piece is also not aimed at generalizing about Pashtun women’s social situation, since there are exceptions in everything and everywhere.

In 1774, Breshna, a woman from the Nasar tribe who is today popularly known as Khadai, got married to someone from the Slaimankhail tribe. After her marriage, a man, from her tribe, named Beeda Bara Khan Nasar didn’t let her go back to her in-laws. This infuriated the Slaimankhail tribe and they gathered an army of four thousand people and fought with the Nasar tribe in Zhob in southeastern Afghanistan. The feud started on the second year of Timur Shah Durrani’s reign and lasted for almost two centuries (1774-1951). The feud that was started by men because of men, today after two centuries, is blamed at Khadai. Khadai is considered the source of bringing bad luck, adversity and shame to the families involved, and is identified as the cause of the feud. And that is why when the Pashtun mothers swear at young daughters for misbehavior, they often call them “Khadai”. Her story is an example of how Pashtun women have suffered from the social guilt of something called bringing shame to the family. Among Pashtuns, this phenomenon is called sharam.

Sharam is the English equivalent of shame or disgrace. This term has usually been used in cases where honor is involved in the Pashtun society. When the honor of a person, family or tribe is jeopardized due to any kind of conflict of interest between individuals, the person causing the disrespect might be declared an outcast. The family or the tribe might disown such a person or not treat him/her a part of the family. To avoid bringing sharam to their families, men are usually expected to not involve in crimes such as theft, fraud, murder, and other criminal or negative behavior. An example can be sexually harassing women, such as by staring at them or following them; this might result in complaints from the victim’s side, and the harasser could thus cause disgrace to his family. 

The culture of avoiding shameful acts has backfired in different matters on the very people who abide by it. A person’s fear of causing sharam for his/her own personality and his family or tribe has limited or almost blocked the ways for people to liberate themselves and express freely that they have suffered from injustice, in most cases, with the hands of their own relatives.

Often times, women are the primary targets of this culture of sharam, a culture comprised of two sides of the same coin. A woman who speaks up against the injustice she has to endure or may have experienced is looked down upon in the community for either complaining or for being too “liberal” or “shameless” (be sharam) by disclosing the realities that should have remained secret. These be sharam women include those who say “no” to a forced marriage or choose husbands for themselves, women who confront their husbands over infidelity or second marriages, widows choosing to remarry out of their deceased husbands’ families, women who ask for their part of the property shared with their male relatives, women who choose not to live with their in-laws while their husbands are away abroad to earn living for the whole family, and women who ask for divorce. Such women’s names, such as Khadai’s, who is considered to be the cause of a two-centuries-long feud, are used as negative metaphors or as examples for cautioning young girls. On the other hand, if a woman silently bears all the injustice, especially domestic violence, and ignores her basic rights, she is praised for being a woman of character, tolerance and source of pride for her male relatives. A Pashtun woman is called asli Pustana-real Pashtun woman when she goes through much in her life without complaining and opts for not changing her own situation when she has an opportunity to do so.

There have also been instances of the lives of women in my village where they have been praised for keeping calm and quiet when faced with injustice from their relatives. People praise and refer to them as asli Pashtanay i.e. real Pashtun women, when they not only quietly suffer in their lives but also show being content during their adversities. Wana (not her real name) died of a heart attack in 2003 when, after trying in vain to become pregnant for fourteen years, her husband decided to remarry. Even though she did not like the fact that she had to share her whole life and most importantly her husband with another woman, she was celebrated as a heroine throughout the village for going out to ask for the hand of her husband’s second wife. Wana was a victim of depression, anxiety and finally a heart attack that took her life, just so she could keep the honor of her family, the name of her father, and the respect of her husband and be called an asliPushtana.

A twenty-three year old man from Kabul in Afghanistan who lived and worked in another city said that he was angry at his father for his decision to bring a second wife home. When the man’s mother came to know that he was angry at his father for remarrying, she called him and asked him to not only call and talk with his father but also send him the required amount of money so he can hold his second marriage ceremony. The man says his mother argued that it was a hugesharam for her and the whole family to start a brawl within the family because of her husband’s second marriage. She had told her son that there were so many enemies of her husband and his family and people were jealous of his status and position in the society; in order to maintain that, she could endure the miseries and disloyalty of her husband-of-more-than-two-decades and not bring sharam upon the family that could cause their jealous enemies some satisfaction of witnessing distress and conflict among the members the envied family. She was ready to deny her own rights and let her husband exploit her stand regarding the people jealous of her and her husband’s life and position.

Apparent from the above examples, women are held responsible for anything that goes wrong within relations and families. They therefore are very cautious about their status and character in the household and in the tribe so as not to cause any harm to the name of their families by being the reason of sharam for them. This is the main reason of discrimination and acceptance of violence against women in the society, the reason for nurturing social stigmas and paving ways for incidents of violence, such as rape, that go unreported. Moreover, women have been denying and sacrificing their own basic human rights in order to save the honor of their families in the society. They have created an environment where quietly becoming a victim is deemed noble.  They are lured into believing that they are honorable and decent if they tolerate injustice, that they are responsible for the honor and good name of their families, that they are, in fact, the ones to be blamed when anything goes wrong in family matters.

 Source

Witness - Shabeena's Quest

Family jailed in Belgium for 'honour killing'

A Belgian court has sentenced four members of a Pakistani family to prison for the "honour killing" of their law student daughter and sister, Belgian media reported.

After pronouncing the family members guilty for the shooting death of Sadia Sheikh in October 2007, the jury on Monday sentenced father Tarik Mahmood Sheikh to 25 years behind bars, mother Zahida Parveen Sariya to 20 years, brother Mudusar to 15 and sister Sariya to five years.

Lawyers for the family said brother Mudusar, who confessed to pulling the trigger on the three bullets that killed his sister, was handed a lesser jail term than his parents as they were considered to have ordered the girl's death.

Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for all three, and between 20 and 30 years behind bars for Sariya.

Sadia Sheikh, who defied the family by living with a Belgian and refusing an arranged marriage, was shot dead when aged 20 on October 22, 2007.

Mudusar admitted before the jury of five women and seven men to killing his sister while saying the rest of the family were not to blame.

Her parents and sister stood accused of aiding and abetting the killing which took place when the student visited her family in the hopes of patching up their quarrel.

Premeditated crime

Questioned during Belgium's first "honour killing" trial, Mudusar said the killing was premeditated "for a long time".

The trial also involved rights groups pleading for gender equality as part of a civil suit at the hearings.

Sadia Sheikh left the family home to study after her shopkeeper parents tried to arrange a marriage with a cousin living in Pakistan whom she had never met.

Before moving in with a Belgian man named Jean, she was helped by fellow students and teachers and also spent some time in a centre for victims of domestic violence, where she drew up a will as she felt threatened.

She had nonetheless agreed to visit the family in hopes of making peace the day she was shot.

The father, mother and sister, who also face charges of "attempting to arrange a marriage", denied involvement in the murder, saying Mudusar killed his sister in a fit of rage.

Source

Child brides blot tribal Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan - As international headlines for much of this month focused on the attack on 14-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai by the Taliban, what generally went unnoticed was the outrageous plight of more than a dozen young girls in Pakistan.

Last month, a blood feud between two battling tribes in the Dera Bugti district of Balochistan province was settled by a tribal "Jirga" (assembly of elders) that decided to hand over as many as 13 young girls in "vani" - an age-old tribal custom that gives females in marriage to males of another tribal group to settle a dispute.

The punishment was handed down by the Jirga allegedly presided over by a member of the Balochistan provincial assembly, Mir Tariq Masoori Bugti. Members of the legislator's clan, however, denied that he had chaired the Jirga, saying he was in Multan at the time.

On October 9, the Supreme Court took notice of media reports on the issue and summoned Mir Tariq as well as the deputy commissioner of Dera Bugti to explain the facts of the case.

"Mir Tariq absolutely did chair that Jirga; you can ask anyone in the Dera Bugti area," Ghulam Nabi Shahani, an elder of the rival Shahani Masoori tribe, said. "He was in attendance for two hours, and his brothers also joined proceedings later."

Nabi also alledged that Mir Tariq's guards held a man from his tribe hostage till all 13 girls were handed over along with a Rs3 million (about $30,000) fine.

Un-Islamic practice

Child marriage - known as "swara" in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, "vani" in Punjab, "sang chati" in Sindh, and "vani" and "lajai" in Balochistan - are enacted in disturbingly large swathes of Pakistan and reinforced by customs that treat women as commodities.

Despite the fact that Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, which refers to early marriage as the marriage of people less than 18 years of age, 30 per cent of all marriages in the country fall in the category of child marriages, according to the Rahnuma-Family Planning Association of Pakistan.

"These young girls can be subject to rape while still minors," said Samar Minallah, a human rights activist who in 2004 filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the handing over of women as compensation to settle disputes. While Minallah's petition is still being heard, the vani of at least 70 girls has been blocked by the court since.

At a gathering of women parliamentarians and child marriage survivors organised by a local NGO, 15-year-old Shagufta, from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's capital city of Peshwar, revealed that she was forcibly married at 10 to a boy of the same age. "It seemed like they just wanted a domestic servant," she said. 

Rukhsana, also from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, was 11 when she was married to a 20-year-old man. "On the first night, my mother-in-law forced me to spend the night with my father-in-law and said this was their custom," she recounted. 

Fiza Batool Gilani, the goodwill ambassador for Women's Empowerment, decried the practices as "totally un-Islamic".

"Nowhere does Islam say it is okay to treat women like commodities instead of human beings," Gilani said. 

Formally, these marriages are prohibited in Pakistan under the Child Marriages Restraint Act, 1929, which punishes offenders with one-month imprisonment and/or a fine of Rs1000 (approximately $12).

But the law, according to many observers, is incomplete and hard to implement.

"Conviction under this law does not serve to nullify the marriage, nor is child marriage a cognisable offence, which means that the police cannot intervene directly," Usma Tahir, a policy manager at ActionAid pakistan, said.

Power politics

Government officials are often quick to trot out a list of fresh pro-women legislation enacted by the Pakistan People's Party-led coalition government in the last four and a half years.

However, many who hail from areas where vani and other crimes against women are prevalent remain sceptical that the new legislations will change anything. 

"All these laws will mean nothing as long as parallel systems of governance and administration are in place," former deputy speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Wazir Jogezai said. "As things stand now, half the problems here are solved through Jirgas and the rest through constitutional laws and electoral politics. This confusion only leads to more problems."

Explaining the recent vani case in Dera Bugti, Jogazai said the problem arose because Mir Tariq, who allegedly chaired the Jirga that delivered the extraordinary punishment, was both a parliamentarian and a tribal head. "When you have to balance the demands of justice, the tribe and your voters, justice will inevitably take the back seat."

Meanwhile, officials in the federal government say they are unable to fully enforce laws in the provinces after a recent amendment to the constitution placed women's rights under the jurisdiction of provincial leadership. 

"It is now for the provinces to make comprehensive legislation and implement them to protect women from harmful traditional practices," Gilani explained.

Feudal system
Other rights activists believe that vanis cannot be ended until the system of governance in provinces like Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is overhauled. 

While the sardari (feudal) system in Balochistan was abolished in the early sixties, successive governments have failed to effectively implement the ban due to entrenched resistance from the feudal class. 

A Quetta-based journalist speaking on the condition of anonymity explained: "The sardars have so much power they can still order people to walk on fire to prove their innocence and hand over women to solve feuds."

On the other hand, there is also growing consensus that state security agencies are responsible for the sorry state of affairs in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

"All authority in the provinces is vested in the security forces, which enjoy complete impunity. There is a political government in these areas in name only," I A Rehman, the general secretary of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said. 

Poverty also plays a role in perpetuating anti-women practices. 

"Giving away a daughter in marriage is one less mouth at home to feed," explained Minallah. "In most cases, practices like vani involve the daughters of illiterate and poor people who don't have money or other assets to give as compensation."

Beyond repair?

While rolling back the system of governance and entrenched norms in these areas of Pakistan will be difficult, rights activists suggest the situation is not beyond repair.

"We've seen new legislation in the recent past, now the next step is working with law enforcement agencies," said Anis Haroon, Chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women, a statutory body that also acts as a watchdog body to ensure implementation of laws. "Police and other law enforcement have to be sensitised to the issues involved. Making them aware of what the law says is key."

Experts also suggest that culturally appropriate measures such as sensitising religious leaders, tribal elders and marriage contractors about the legal age of marriage will also prove effective.

"Evidence shows that the more education a girl receives, the less likely she is to marry as a child, so improving access to education for both girls and boys and eliminating gender gaps in education are also important in ending child marriages and practices like vani," Haroon added. 

Khawar Mumtaz, renowned Pakistani development activist who runs Shirkat Ghah, a leading women resource centre, also believes that as cases of vani and other types of violence against women are highlighted by the media and civil society, people's behaviour and mind-sets are already beginning to change. "As the debate opens up and discussions intensify, the right amount of moral pressure will be created to end these practices. It is already happening," Mumtaz said.

Minallah s also hopeful: "The fact that Mir Tariq is vehemently denying that he chaired the recent Jirga is itself a signal: that he knows he has done something wrong, which will in turn send a message to other tribal people that this practice is unacceptable and unrepeatable."

In the words of Baloch leader Wazir Jogazai: "Vani may have been tradition once, but no one can claim today that it is anything but a crime."

Source

Who in Pakistan should have protected Malala?

Fearing the ‘weak’

This is the woman whom you have been trying to keep hidden behind seven veils. You glance at her just once and you are “seduced” by her and start reciting couplets; the mere sight of a woman is enough to endanger your faith. You avert your gaze and start babbling incoherently. You think she is the weak one here, the softer, fairer sex but not once do you spare a thought for your own weakness. You hide your own fear by forcing her to fear you.

You have invented numerous excuses to hide your fear of women. Sometimes, it is ghairat, sometimes rituals and traditions. Sometimes, you even erect a wall of religion as an excuse to hide your own insecurities. If these excuses don’t work, then you use niqab, chador, bangles and jewellery but never will you try to perceive women on an equal level. All you see of us is our body; you only look at us through circles, circles that have trapped you. How can you see anyone’s soul, when you yourself don’t have one?

I am a mother, a daughter, a sister and a wife; you and I are bound in so many ways. You are always ready to make me your lover but always refuse to give me the status of a friend. Whenever the question of equality comes up, you back off. You go and make friends outside the home but I, who am your home, must only be expected to look after a house. I wait for your return, cook your meals, look after your children but I know, I can never be your friend.

What does it matter if you allowed me to go and work to help you with the household expenses? I still have no right over my own income. Whether I work outside of home or within it, the power of making a decision remains in your hands. All working women set about to earn a living from early morning to late night, without a break. The housework that they do isn’t accounted for in any manner. The women who work outside the home, at a big post or small, clerk or officer, may be even head of their department, return home at the end of the day to obey you, the head of the house.

What does it matter if you educate your daughter in one of the elite schools in the city or send her abroad to obtain a degree from a foreign university? She must still marry according to your wishes. Not marry someone who matches her mentality, her intellect but someone who you might not even like but just as long as he comes from an affluent family, and has a high status in our society. A potential groom for your daughter must not have a status lower than your own, and must match you in terms of respect too. At least, he will give your daughter all the comfort and luxury of life, even if he cannot provide your daughter with happiness.

You insist on alone having the right to think because you think I do not possess the ability to think for myself or for our home. If I do make the mistake of doing either of the two, you will call in the jirgas,panchayats to judge me in. Even the neighbours hold the right to pass judgments on me.

What does a woman have to do with education? These schools are just there to teach “immoral activities” and are a Western conspiracy against us. A woman’s place is at home. Even if we provide her with the best education, she will eventually end up looking after the house anyway. There are such parents who provide their daughter with a professional degree thinking that will get her an equally or more educated husband and that she will live a prosperous life. They don’t think once about the fact that her professional degree would be wasted as she spends the rest of her life bringing up children, and attempting to please her husband.

It never matters how much fame a woman earns because of her talents, no matter how successful she is, no matter how high a post she achieves in her career. All of it can be destroyed in a single moment by a single allegation on her character. It can compel her to stay home. You, however, may have hundreds and thousands of charges against you but the society is still going to meet you, bowing in respect. The fact that you have charges against you will only serve to increase your prestige. Not to mention, how you use those charges against you to get political leverage. It just keeps getting easier for you, doesn’t it?

How can the laws for women be passed when the lawmakers themselves don’t agree with them?  Numerous bills for women keep getting submitted but all of them end up pending. But if there is a law that ensures that your system of give and take flows as smoothly as ever, then that law will be passed immediately. Even our female prime minister could not change the laws against women. Now the country is ruled by men anyway.

Women can continue to protest in the national and provincial assemblies but the majority is yours, isn’t it? Women hired by political parties are either just there for show or they have been hired to further hire herds of women for their party’s rallies just to take photographs. Someone should ask that leader, the self-proclaimed champion of women’s rights, how many women does he allow to sit with him during important decision-making meetings for the party.

You have released an army of sons who roam the streets and neighbourhoods, waving weapons and sticks, wreaking havoc in the city. But it is your daughters who continue to maintain the peace in your home; the same daughters who are also working in offices simultaneously. They are ahead of your sons in education. They are well-versed with the modern world and also have been gifted with the ability to think by God. You can do whatever you want to keep us away from schools, enshroud us in hijabs and niqabs, pollute our thinking with obsolete ideas but you cannot prevent the light of the new age from reaching us.

This net that you have sewn from the threads of ghairat and religion, you use it to trap me like a fish. It cannot prevent the infiltration of thinking, understanding and believing. Don’t forget that every home has a mother, a mother who wants to see her daughter educated.

Have you ever been to a university? You will see women everywhere on the campus. Seventy to 80 per cent of the women are studying and are at the forefront in every competition. Forget the big universities in the big cities. Why don’t you take a walk around the Gujrat University campus, notice how the daughters come from far-away villages, changing various buses to reach the university everyday. Your offices cannot function without a woman anymore. That is because she alone knows how to work hard with affability. She has no interest at all in all the fighting and riots.

Best you teach your sons to respect their sisters, and educate them. If you don’t, the rising demographic ratio is going produce educated daughters with no sons to match them. Educate them so they are not pitted against each other; one putting your house on fire, the other dousing it.  Source

Get well soon Malala!

Everyone please pray for Malala, she is a true heroine of our times.

 "If you educate a man, you educate one person. If you educate a woman, you educate and liberate a whole nation." Malcolm X. 

Sabbiyah Pervez is a voice from Bradford on the shooting of a brave young woman.

Education is a privilege that we take for granted here in the UK. We take for granted that it is compulsory and we take for granted that up until the age of 18 it is free. We take for granted the fact that we do not have to fight for our education, we do not have to struggle for it and most importantly we do not have to risk our lives for it. But there are many for whom such struggles are a constant reality. Many like Malala Yousafzai, who have that privilege stolen from them and for whom education is deemed unnecessary.

The issue regarding women being educated is one that has been prevalent throughout the ages, stemming largely from the belief that by educating a woman you are doing more harm then good, a view that still exists in fragments today within our own society. Many women will tell you that men feel intimidated by their knowledge or expertise in a certain field, indicating that the archaic view of the man being the dominant leader and omniscient, is still apparent within us.

I recall my grandmother narrating to us, that her eldest brother pulled her out of school when she hit puberty; she stated that he was concerned that if she continued to be educated she would not marry the man who was betrothed to her. My grandfather is significantly older then my grandmother and was a divorcee. When asked how she felt about her brothers decision, my grandmother replied she was furious but later saw the wisdom of his decision; she would definitely have not married my grandfather if she had continued her education.

As a young third generation British Asian girl growing up in Bradford, I encountered this backward mentality directed to my parents from some within my own community. Many stated that I did not need to be educated. Instead I should be educated to the bare minimum and be married off at an early age in order to remove myself as a burden from my parents. Others argued that if I was educated "too much" I would become difficult to control and education would grant me "too much" freedom, it would be hard then for me to conform to the expectations many had set for me. Fortunately I can tell you they were right. My education educated and liberated me, it allowed me to critically analyse the problems that i saw around me and to openly question and challenge them. My questions brought discomfort and I was regularly cautioned by elder members of my community for asking "too many questions." Unfortunately, I know of many girls here in the UK, who are pulled out of school because education is seen as a threat to what their elders expect of them.

So in a sense I can understand why the Taliban banned the education of girls when they took over the Swat Valley. They, like my great uncle and many others in Pakistan, felt threatened by the effect of educating a girl. You see Malcolm X pretty much has summed it up for us. When you educate a woman, you don't just educate her, you liberate her. You allow her to travel on a path of self-discovery and you enable her to question her position in society. You empower her by giving her knowledge of what she can become. And this is dangerous. It is dangerous to the Taliban because it means that they will not be able to impose their patriarchal laws upon liberated women, it means that if they do they will be presented with a challenge and a force greater then them. And their rule will be effectively be diminished. It was a threat and a risk they couldn't take.

So for those asking what Malala Yousafzai has done to the Taliban, this is exactly what she has done. At the tender age of 11, Malala started writing in order to articulate her hopes and fears under a false name. When her cover was blown and she was threatened by the Taliban and its sympathizers, she did not cease her writing. In contrast she went public, so that by the age of 14 she was a name and a force to be reckoned with. You see by educating Malala, her parents had given her her greatest gift. They had enabled her to understand her potential and to recognise that her writing was a tool, it was the sword of opposition to the men who had taken away her privilege of studying. It was her opportunity to stick her middle finger up in defiance and to seek vengeance and boy, did she strike fear in their hearts! Malala Yousafzai was a threat because her defiance was an inspiration to others, others who lacked her bravery and her strength of character and determination. It was an act of defiance that could ignite a movement of opposition, an opposition the Taliban desperately wanted to quash, threaten and intimidate.

Their motive behind shooting Malala is a simple one: shoot the leader and you scare the followers. To them it is a message of force, but in reality it is an act of cowardice. It is an act which demonstrates how pig-headed the Taliban really are. It demonstrates their weakness and fragility. So weak that a young girl armed with her writing can be seen as a great threat, a threat so damaging to them that even after shooting her they state that if she does not die they will strike once more. It is this latter thought that makes them real fools. By believing that they have eliminated a threat by shooting Malala, or even, God forbid ,by killing her, they are seriously deluded. This act will inspire many more like Malala, frustrated with the oppression of women that they encounter daily, frustrated with their lack of human rights and frustrated by their governments inability to protect them.

They will rise out of their slumber with a sense of empowerment and purpose to set a precedent for future generations, and I pray to God that when they do, Malala is there to lead them once again.