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Tina Brown’s fourth Women in the World Summit began on Thursday evening at New York’s Lincoln Centre with a discussion on the timely theme of women in conflict and continued with debates on the situation in Syria, South Africa and Pakistan.
Of all the panels, the most powerful, hands-down, was the discussion on Pakistan, moderated by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
The focus was on “The Next Generation of Malalas,” referring to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head last year by extremists opposed to the education of girls, which she so bravely championed. Malala survived her injuries and is now living in England.
This “next generation” of Malalas includes young women like Humaira Bachel and Khalida Brohi, who are following in Malala’s footsteps to promote the education and empowerment of girls and women in Pakistan.
Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, who also took part in the panel, has documented their work and clips from her films were shown during the session.
In one segment, Humaira Bachel from Karachi is shown speaking to a gathering of male village elders, trying to persuade them to send their daughters to school. Bachel, who is just over 20 years old, is the founder and president of the Dream Foundation Trust, which educates over 700 students, including giving adult literacy classes to young women and child labourers.
In another clip, we see Khalida Brohi, 24, facing down a room of male village elders. They tell her their wives and daughters should stay at home and if they leave, they will be punished “by the bullet.”
Brohi shows impressive aplomb at hearing this. “I think I was patient over there because I thought that one day this man would be working for me,” she said, drawing applause and laughter from the audience.
But there is a dangerously serious aspect to her work, which has drawn criticism and threats to her family, she said. Her father, in fact, urged her not to continue to speak on behalf of her foundation, the Sughar Women Programme. Sughar is an Urdu word that means strong and confident.
Brohi said she told her father that, “Not doing this work will kill me. Doing this work will keep me alive.” He then told her to go and do it, she said.
But the fight is far from over, according to filmmaker Chinoy. “It will get a lot worse before it can get better. A lot, a lot worse,” she said.
Brohi, Bachel and Chinoy received the only standing ovation of the evening.
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