An Unstoppable Shero

 Nasim was married at 13. Child marriage is customary where she lives in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. It consigns young girls to lifelong illiteracy, poverty, and ill-health. A 13-year old girl is five times as likely to die giving birth as a woman in her 20s.

But Nasim was fortunate. Her husband encouraged her continued education. Eventually she earned a Master’s degree and ran a private school for 95 girls. Nasim wasn’t satisfied, however, with helping only those girls who could pay for school. She boldly ran as a local council member to promote girls education.

Shocked at the impropriety of a political woman, Nasim’s family and neighbors shunned her and her staunchly supportive husband. Despite threats from local politicians to “have their thumbs cut off” if women voted, Nasim led the way for women to the polling stations.

Today, Nasim is the Women’s Wing Provincial Coordinator for one of Pakistan’s major political parties. While she wants to make a difference at the national level, she’s hit another barrier.

While Pakistan’s constitution reserves a certain number of seats in the National Assembly for women, to run for one of the seats, Nasim had to raise 75,000 rupees. Despite succeeding, her party leaders did not choose her as a candidate. Often, the parties reward male candidates by allotting the reserved bids to their female family members, edging out women like Nasim. Female relatives tend to side with their male counterparts on the issues, even if it goes against broader women’s interests.

Defeated, Nasim heard about Search’s program, Women’s Initiatives for Learning & Leadership (WILL). She joined other Pakistani women politicians to learn legislative processes and leadership skills in negotiation, dialogue, and media relations.

Farsighted and courageous, Nasim credits Search for her political confidence. Now understanding women’s electoral rights, she is committed to reforming unfair practices. She is currently engaging her party chairman’s daughter to achieve a more transparent candidacy process. With other WILL women, Nasim is also launching a national Women’s Caucus to help women representatives stand up for common interests, across party lines and family allegiances, and collaborate with male allies on key policy issues.

Nasim founded the organization Safar to promote education, health, and business skills among women, girls, and boys. Safar provides scholarships, giving poor students the same privilege that Nasim’s husband provided her. Recipient of the 2013 Women Human Rights Defender award, Nasim is “very grateful to WILL for building my capacity and confidence and for the opportunities Search gave women to come to the forefront.”

Hear from Nasim and other women leaders in Pakistan in the video below:

To learn more about these and other Women’s Initiative for Learning & Leadership (WILL) initiatives, click here .