WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
While preparing for my talk

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was reflecting on my life

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and trying to figure out

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where exactly was that moment
when my journey began.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A long time passed by,
and I simple couldn't figure out

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the beginning or the middle
or the end of my story.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I always used to think that my beginning

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was one afternoon in my community
when my mother had told me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that I had escaped three
arranged marriages by the time I was two.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Or one evening when electricity had failed
for eight hours in our community,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and my dad sat, surrounded by all of us,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
telling us stories of when he was
a little kid struggling to go to school

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
while his father, who was a farmer,
wanted him to work in the fields with him.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Or the dark night when I was 16
when three little kids have come to me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they whispered in my ear
that my friend was murdered

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in something called "the honor killings."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But then I realized that,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as much as I know that these moments
have contributed on my journey,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they have influenced my journey

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they have not been
the beginning of it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the true beginning of my journey
was in front of a mud house

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in Upper Sindh of Pakistan,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where my father held the hand
of my 14-year old mother

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they decided
to walk out of the village

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to go to a town where they could
send their kids to school.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In a way, I feel like my life

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is kind of a result of some wise choices
and decisions they've made.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And just like that,
another of their decisions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was to keep me and my siblings
connected to our roots.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
While we were living in a community
I fondly remember called [?????],

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which means community of the poor,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
my dad made sure that we also
had a house in our rural homeland.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I come from an indigenous tribe
in the mountains of Baluchistan

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
called Bravi.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Bravi, or Brohi,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
means mountain dweller,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it is also my language.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thanks to my father's very strict rules
about connecting to our customs,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I had to live a beautiful life
of songs, cultures, traditions,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
stories, mountains,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and a lot of sheep.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But then, living in two extremes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
between the traditions of my culture,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of my village, and then education,
modern education in my school wasn't easy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was aware that I was the only girl
who got to have such freedom,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I was guilty of it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
While going to school in Karachi

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Hyderabad,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a lot of my cousins and childhood friends
were getting married off,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
some to older men, some in exchange,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
some even as second wives.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I got to see the beautiful tradition

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and its magic fade in front of me

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when I saw that the birth of a girl child

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was celebrated with sadness,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when women were told
to have patience as their main virtue.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Up until I was 16,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I healed my sadness by crying,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
mostly at nights
when everyone would sleep,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I would sob in my pillow,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but until that one night
when I found out my friend was killed

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the name of honor.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Honor killings is a custom

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where men and women
are suspected of having relationships

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
before or outside of the marriage,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they're killed by their family for it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Usually the killer is the brother
or father or the uncle in the family.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The U.N. reports there are about 1,000
honor murders every year in Pakistan,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and these are only the reported cases.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A custom that kills
did not make any sense to me,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I knew I had to do
something about it this time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was not going to cry myself to sleep.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was going to do something,
anything, to stop it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was 16. I started writing poetry

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and going door to door
telling everybody about honor killings

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and why it happens,
why it should be stopped,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and raising awareness about it until
I actually found a much, much better way

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to handle this issue.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In those days, we were
living in a very small,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
one roomed house in Karachi.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Every year, during the monsoon seasons,
our house would flood out with water,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
rainwater, and sewage,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and my mom and dad
would be taking the water out.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In those days, my dad brought home
a huge machine, a computer.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was so big it looked as if
it was going to take the half

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of the only room we had,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and had so many pieces and wires
that needed to be connected.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But it was still the most exciting thing

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that has ever happened
to me and my sisters.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My older brother Ali got to be in charge
of taking care of the computer,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and all of us were given, like,
10 to 15 minutes every day to use it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Being the older of eight kids,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I got to use it the last,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and that was after
I had washed the dishes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
cleaned the house,
made dinner with my mom,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and put blankets on the floor
for everyone to sleep,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and after that,
I would run to the computer,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
connect it to the Internet,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and have pure joy and wonder
for 15 to 10 minutes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In those days, I had discovered
a website called Joogle.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
[Google] (Laughter)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In my frantic wish
to do something about this custom,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I made use of Google
and discovered Facebook,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a website where people can connect
to anyone around the world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so, from my very tiny,
cement-roofed room in Karachi,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I connected with people in U.K.,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
U.S., Australia, and Canada,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and created a campaign

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
called "WAKE UP Campaign
against Honor Killings."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It became enormous in just a few months.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I got a lot of support
from all around the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Media was connecting to us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A lot of people were reaching out
trying to raise awareness with us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It became so big that it went from online
to the streets of my hometown,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where we would do rallies and strikes
trying to change the policies in Pakistan

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for women's support.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And while I thought
everything was perfect,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
my team, who was basically
my friends and neighbors at that time,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
thought everything was going so well,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we had no idea
a big opposition was coming to us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
My community stood up against us,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
saying we were spreading
un-Islamic behavior.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We were challenging centuries-old
customs in those communities.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I remember my father receiving
anonymous letters

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
saying, "Your daughter is spreading

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Western culture
in the honorable societies."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Our car was stoned at one point.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One day I went to the office
and found our metal signboard

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
wrinkled and broken as if a lot of people
had been hitting it with something heavy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Things got so bad that I had
to hide myself in many ways.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I would put up the windows of the car,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
veil my face, not speak
while I was in public,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but eventually, situations got worse

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when my life was threatened

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and I had to leave back to Karachi

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and our actions stopped.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Back in Karachi, as an 18-year old,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I thought this was the biggest
failure of my entire life.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I was devastated.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As a teenager, I was blaming
myself for everything that happened.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And it turns out,
when we started reflecting,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we did realize that it was actually
me and my team's fault.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There were two big reasons
why our campaign had failed big time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One of those, the first reason,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is we were standing
against core values of people.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We were saying no to something
that was very important to them,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
challenging their code of honor,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and hurting them deeply in the process.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And number two, which was very
important for me to learn,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and amazing, and surprising
for me to learn,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was that we were not including
the true heroes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who should be fighting for themselves.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The women in the villages had no idea
we were fighting for them in the streets.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Every time I would go back,
I would find my cousins and friends

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with scarves on their faces,
and I would ask, what happened?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And they'd be like, our husband beat us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But then we are working
in the streets for you.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are changing the policies.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
How is that not impacting their life?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So then we found out something
which was very amazing for us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The policies of a country

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
do not necessarily always affect
the tribal and rural communities.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was devastating, like, oh,
we can't actually do something about this?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And we found out there's a huge gap

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when it comes to official policies
and the real truth on the ground.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So this time, we were like,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
we are going to do something different.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are going to use strategy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we are going to go back and apologize.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Yes, apologize.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We went back to the communities
and we said we are very ashamed

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of what we did.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are here to apologize,
and in fact, we are here

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to make it up to you.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
How did we do that?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We are going to promote
three of your main cultures.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We know that it's music,
language, and embroidery.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Nobody believed us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Nobody wanted to work with us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It took a lot of convincing
and discussions with these communities

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
until they agreed that we are going
to promote their language

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by making a booklet of their stories,
fables, and old tales in the tribe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we would promote their music
by making a CD of the songs

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from the tribe, and some drumbeating.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the third, which was my favorite,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was we would promote
their embroidery by making

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a center in the village
where women would come every day

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to make embroidery.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so it began.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We worked with one village,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we started our first center.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was a beautiful day.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We started the center.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Women were coming to make embroidery,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and going through a life-changing
process of education,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
learning about their rights,
what Islam says about their rights,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and enterprise development,
how they can create money,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and then how they can create
money from money,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how they can fight the customs
that have been destroying their lives

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
from so many centuries,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because in Islam, in reality,
women are supposed to be

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
shoulder to shoulder with men.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Women have so much status

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we have not been hearing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that they have not been hearing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and we needed to tell them
that they need to know

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where their rights are
and how to take them by themselves,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because they can do it and we can't.