1
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
While preparing for my talk

2
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I was reflecting on my life

3
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and trying to figure out

4
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
where exactly was that moment
when my journey began.

5
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
A long time passed by,
and I simple couldn't figure out

6
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the beginning or the middle
or the end of my story.

7
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I always used to think that my beginning

8
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was one afternoon in my community
when my mother had told me

9
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that I had escaped three
arranged marriages by the time I was two.

10
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Or one evening when electricity had failed
for eight hours in our community,

11
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and my dad sat, surrounded by all of us,

12
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
telling us stories of when he was
a little kid struggling to go to school

13
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
while his father, who was a farmer,
wanted him to work in the fields with him.

14
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Or the dark night when I was 16
when three little kids have come to me

15
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and they whispered in my ear
that my friend was murdered

16
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
in something called "the honor killings."

17
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But then I realized that,

18
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
as much as I know that these moments
have contributed on my journey,

19
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
they have influenced my journey

20
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but they have not been
the beginning of it,

21
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but the true beginning of my journey
was in front of a mud house

22
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
in Upper Sindh of Pakistan,

23
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
where my father held the hand
of my 14-year old mother

24
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and they decided
to walk out of the village

25
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to go to a town where they could
send their kids to school.

26
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In a way, I feel like my life

27
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is kind of a result of some wise choices
and decisions they've made.

28
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And just like that,
another of their decisions

29
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was to keep me and my siblings
connected to our roots.

30
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
While we were living in a community
I fondly remember called [?????],

31
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
which means community of the poor,

32
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
my dad made sure that we also
had a house in our rural homeland.

33
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I come from an indigenous tribe
in the mountains of Baluchistan

34
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
called Bravi.

35
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Bravi, or Brohi,

36
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
means mountain dweller,

37
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and it is also my language.

38
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Thanks to my father's very strict rules
about connecting to our customs,

39
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I had to live a beautiful life
of songs, cultures, traditions,

40
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
stories, mountains,

41
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and a lot of sheep.

42
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But then, living in two extremes

43
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
between the traditions of my culture,

44
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of my village, and then education,
modern education in my school wasn't easy.

45
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I was aware that I was the only girl
who got to have such freedom,

46
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I was guilty of it.

47
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
While going to school in Karachi

48
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and Hyderabad,

49
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
a lot of my cousins and childhood friends
were getting married off,

50
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
some to older men, some in exchange,

51
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
some even as second wives.

52
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I got to see the beautiful tradition

53
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and its magic fade in front of me

54
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
when I saw that the birth of a girl child

55
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was celebrated with sadness,

56
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
when women were told
to have patience as their main virtue.

57
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Up until I was 16,

58
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I healed my sadness by crying,

59
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
mostly at nights
when everyone would sleep,

60
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I would sob in my pillow,

61
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but until that one night
when I found out my friend was killed

62
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
in the name of honor.

63
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Honor killings is a custom

64
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
where men and women
are suspected of having relationships

65
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
before or outside of the marriage,

66
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and they're killed by their family for it.

67
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Usually the killer is the brother
or father or the uncle in the family.

68
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The U.N. reports there are about 1,000
honor murders every year in Pakistan,

69
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and these are only the reported cases.

70
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
A custom that kills
did not make any sense to me,

71
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I knew I had to do
something about it this time.

72
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I was not going to cry myself to sleep.

73
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I was going to do something,
anything, to stop it.

74
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I was 16. I started writing poetry

75
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and going door to door
telling everybody about honor killings

76
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and why it happens,
why it should be stopped,

77
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and raising awareness about it until
I actually found a much, much better way

78
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to handle this issue.

79
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In those days, we were
living in a very small,

80
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
one roomed house in Karachi.

81
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Every year, during the monsoon seasons,
our house would flood out with water,

82
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
rainwater, and sewage,

83
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and my mom and dad
would be taking the water out.

84
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In those days, my dad brought home
a huge machine, a computer.

85
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It was so big it looked as if
it was going to take the half

86
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of the only room we had,

87
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and had so many pieces and wires
that needed to be connected.

88
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But it was still the most exciting thing

89
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that has ever happened
to me and my sisters.

90
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
My older brother Ali got to be in charge
of taking care of the computer,

91
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and all of us were given, like,
10 to 15 minutes every day to use it.

92
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Being the older of eight kids,

93
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I got to use it the last,

94
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and that was after
I had washed the dishes,

95
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
cleaned the house,
made dinner with my mom,

96
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and put blankets on the floor
for everyone to sleep,

97
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and after that,
I would run to the computer,

98
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
connect it to the Internet,

99
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and have pure joy and wonder
for 15 to 10 minutes.

100
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In those days, I had discovered
a website called Joogle.

101
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
[Google] (Laughter)

102
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In my frantic wish
to do something about this custom,

103
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I made use of Google
and discovered Facebook,

104
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
a website where people can connect
to anyone around the world,

105
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and so, from my very tiny,
cement-roofed room in Karachi,

106
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I connected with people in U.K.,

107
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
U.S., Australia, and Canada,

108
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and created a campaign

109
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
called "WAKE UP Campaign
against Honor Killings."

110
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It became enormous in just a few months.

111
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I got a lot of support
from all around the world.

112
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Media was connecting to us.

113
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
A lot of people were reaching out
trying to raise awareness with us.

114
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It became so big that it went from online
to the streets of my hometown,

115
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
where we would do rallies and strikes
trying to change the policies in Pakistan

116
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
for women's support.

117
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And while I thought
everything was perfect,

118
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
my team, who was basically
my friends and neighbors at that time,

119
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
thought everything was going so well,

120
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that we had no idea
a big opposition was coming to us.

121
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
My community stood up against us,

122
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
saying we were spreading
un-Islamic behavior.

123
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We were challenging centuries-old
customs in those communities.

124
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I remember my father receiving
anonymous letters

125
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
saying, "Your daughter is spreading

126
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Western culture
in the honorable societies."

127
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Our car was stoned at one point.

128
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
One day I went to the office
and found our metal signboard

129
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
wrinkled and broken as if a lot of people
had been hitting it with something heavy.

130
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Things got so bad that I had
to hide myself in many ways.

131
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I would put up the windows of the car,

132
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
veil my face, not speak
while I was in public,

133
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but eventually, situations got worse

134
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
when my life was threatened

135
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I had to leave back to Karachi

136
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and our actions stopped.

137
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Back in Karachi, as an 18-year old,

138
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I thought this was the biggest
failure of my entire life.

139
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I was devastated.

140
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
As a teenager, I was blaming
myself for everything that happened.

141
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And it turns out,
when we started reflecting,

142
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
we did realize that it was actually
me and my team's fault.

143
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
There were two big reasons
why our campaign had failed big time.

144
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
One of those, the first reason,

145
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is we were standing
against core values of people.

146
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We were saying no to something
that was very important to them,

147
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
challenging their code of honor,

148
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and hurting them deeply in the process.

149
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And number two, which was very
important for me to learn,

150
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and amazing, and surprising
for me to learn,

151
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was that we were not including
the true heroes

152
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
who should be fighting for themselves.

153
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The women in the villages had no idea
we were fighting for them in the streets.

154
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Every time I would go back,
I would find my cousins and friends

155
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
with scarves on their faces,
and I would ask, what happened?

156
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
And they'd be like, our husband beat us.

157
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But then we are working
in the streets for you.

158
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
We are changing the policies.

159
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
How is that not impacting their life?

160
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
So then we found out something
which was very amazing for us.

161
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The policies of a country

162
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
do not necessarily always affect
the tribal and rural communities.

163
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It was devastain