9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
While preparing for my talk

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was reflecting on my life

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and trying to figure out

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where exactly was that moment[br]when my journey began.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A long time passed by,[br]and I simple couldn't figure out

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the beginning or the middle[br]or the end of my story.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I always used to think that my beginning

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was one afternoon in my community[br]when my mother had told me

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that I had escaped three[br]arranged marriages by the time I was two.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Or one evening when electricity had failed[br]for eight hours in our community,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and my dad sat, surrounded by all of us,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
telling us stories of when he was[br]a little kid struggling to go to school

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
while his father, who was a farmer,[br]wanted him to work in the fields with him.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Or the dark night when I was 16[br]when three little kids have come to me

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and they whispered in my ear[br]that my friend was murdered

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in something called "the honor killings."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But then I realized that,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as much as I know that these moments[br]have contributed on my journey,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they have influenced my journey

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but they have not been[br]the beginning of it,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but the true beginning of my journey[br]was in front of a mud house

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in Upper Sindh of Pakistan,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where my father held the hand[br]of my 14-year old mother

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and they decided[br]to walk out of the village

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to go to a town where they could[br]send their kids to school.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In a way, I feel like my life

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is kind of a result of some wise choices[br]and decisions they've made.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And just like that,[br]another of their decisions

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was to keep me and my siblings[br]connected to our roots.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
While we were living in a community[br]I fondly remember called [?????],

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which means community of the poor,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my dad made sure that we also[br]had a house in our rural homeland.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I come from an indigenous tribe[br]in the mountains of Baluchistan

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
called Bravi.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Bravi, or Brohi,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
means mountain dweller,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and it is also my language.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Thanks to my father's very strict rules[br]about connecting to our customs,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I had to live a beautiful life[br]of songs, cultures, traditions,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
stories, mountains,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and a lot of sheep.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But then, living in two extremes

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
between the traditions of my culture,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of my village, and then education,[br]modern education in my school wasn't easy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was aware that I was the only girl[br]who got to have such freedom,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I was guilty of it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
While going to school in Karachi

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and Hyderabad,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a lot of my cousins and childhood friends[br]were getting married off,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
some to older men, some in exchange,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
some even as second wives.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I got to see the beautiful tradition

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and its magic fade in front of me

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when I saw that the birth of a girl child

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was celebrated with sadness,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when women were told[br]to have patience as their main virtue.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Up until I was 16,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I healed my sadness by crying,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
mostly at nights[br]when everyone would sleep,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I would sob in my pillow,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but until that one night[br]when I found out my friend was killed

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the name of honor.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Honor killings is a custom

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where men and women[br]are suspected of having relationships

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
before or outside of the marriage,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and they're killed by their family for it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Usually the killer is the brother[br]or father or the uncle in the family.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The U.N. reports there are about 1,000[br]honor murders every year in Pakistan,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and these are only the reported cases.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A custom that kills[br]did not make any sense to me,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I knew I had to do[br]something about it this time.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was not going to cry myself to sleep.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was going to do something,[br]anything, to stop it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was 16. I started writing poetry

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and going door to door[br]telling everybody about honor killings

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and why it happens,[br]why it should be stopped,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and raising awareness about it until[br]I actually found a much, much better way

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to handle this issue.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In those days, we were[br]living in a very small,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
one roomed house in Karachi.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Every year, during the monsoon seasons,[br]our house would flood out with water,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
rainwater, and sewage,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and my mom and dad[br]would be taking the water out.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In those days, my dad brought home[br]a huge machine, a computer.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It was so big it looked as if[br]it was going to take the half

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of the only room we had,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and had so many pieces and wires[br]that needed to be connected.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But it was still the most exciting thing

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that has ever happened[br]to me and my sisters.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
My older brother Ali got to be in charge[br]of taking care of the computer,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and all of us were given, like,[br]10 to 15 minutes every day to use it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Being the older of eight kids,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I got to use it the last,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and that was after[br]I had washed the dishes,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
cleaned the house,[br]made dinner with my mom,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and put blankets on the floor[br]for everyone to sleep,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and after that,[br]I would run to the computer,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
connect it to the Internet,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and have pure joy and wonder[br]for 15 to 10 minutes.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In those days, I had discovered[br]a website called Joogle.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
[Google] (Laughter)

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In my frantic wish[br]to do something about this custom,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I made use of Google[br]and discovered Facebook,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a website where people can connect[br]to anyone around the world,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and so, from my very tiny,[br]cement-roofed room in Karachi,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I connected with people in U.K.,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
U.S., Australia, and Canada,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and created a campaign

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
called "WAKE UP Campaign[br]against Honor Killings."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It became enormous in just a few months.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I got a lot of support[br]from all around the world.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Media was connecting to us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
A lot of people were reaching out[br]trying to raise awareness with us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It became so big that it went from online[br]to the streets of my hometown,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where we would do rallies and strikes[br]trying to change the policies in Pakistan

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for women's support.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And while I thought[br]everything was perfect,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
my team, who was basically[br]my friends and neighbors at that time,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
thought everything was going so well,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that we had no idea[br]a big opposition was coming to us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
My community stood up against us,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
saying we were spreading[br]un-Islamic behavior.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We were challenging centuries-old[br]customs in those communities.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I remember my father receiving[br]anonymous letters

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
saying, "Your daughter is spreading

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Western culture[br]in the honorable societies."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Our car was stoned at one point.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One day I went to the office[br]and found our metal signboard

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
wrinkled and broken as if a lot of people[br]had been hitting it with something heavy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Things got so bad that I had[br]to hide myself in many ways.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I would put up the windows of the car,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
veil my face, not speak[br]while I was in public,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but eventually, situations got worse

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when my life was threatened

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I had to leave back to Karachi

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and our actions stopped.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Back in Karachi, as an 18-year old,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I thought this was the biggest[br]failure of my entire life.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was devastated.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
As a teenager, I was blaming[br]myself for everything that happened.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And it turns out,[br]when we started reflecting,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we did realize that it was actually[br]me and my team's fault.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
There were two big reasons[br]why our campaign had failed big time.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One of those, the first reason,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is we were standing[br]against core values of people.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We were saying no to something[br]that was very important to them,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
challenging their code of honor,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and hurting them deeply in the process.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And number two, which was very[br]important for me to learn,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and amazing, and surprising[br]for me to learn,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was that we were not including[br]the true heroes

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
who should be fighting for themselves.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The women in the villages had no idea[br]we were fighting for them in the streets.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Every time I would go back,[br]I would find my cousins and friends

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with scarves on their faces,[br]and I would ask, what happened?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And they'd be like, our husband beat us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But then we are working[br]in the streets for you.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We are changing the policies.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
How is that not impacting their life?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So then we found out something[br]which was very amazing for us.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The policies of a country

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
do not necessarily always affect[br]the tribal and rural communities.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It was devastain