I am revisiting stories from my archives that have left a mark. The story of Baraa Melhem shocked Palestinians in the West Bank and revealed how vulnerable and inadequate social services were; not only to monitor and prevent such incidents,…

“I will always be awed by women who are strong enough to walk down the damn street. I’m here because of all of you.” – Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath I started wearing a headscarf when I was 13…

Sexual abuse is one of the main reasons why women are held back in the Pashtun regions. Most Pashtuns value their ‘honour’. They don’t want their social status to be threatened. This status is based on the respectability of the…

Recently, I received an invite to join the discussion regarding the upcoming WOW festival in 2019 in London. It led me to reminisce about the festival earlier this year. I had the honour of being asked to join sister-hood in…

I am a British Pakistani, born in London. Both my mother and father were born in Lahore, Pakistan. I can’t speak my mother tongue and I know little to nothing about my ethnic culture. What can I say? They didn’t…

I will be with you in the grave on the night you leave behind  your shop and your family. When you hear my soft voice  echoing in your tomb,  you will realize that you were never hidden from my eyes….

At five years of age, I underwent Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C). As a grown woman, it’s been a challenge to understand the experience that I went through at that age. Over the years, I have asked many questions, like ‘Why…

The incessant search for a suitable spouse continued to dominate my parents’ minds. After countless months of rejected potentials, they resorted to underhand methods to entice me towards the one type of man I refused to see. Whilst I was…

I went to an all-girls school. I am the second of three girls in my family, and my closest friends are all women. I get women. I am good at navigating spaces with women and I cherish the deep bonds…

This is a typical millennial story, in the sense that it began on Twitter. Between the memes and the drama I saw a tweet about something called SheCodes. I hesitated at first but then I was like, why not, I’ve…

Divorce means the dissolution of marriage for a married couple. It’s a matter of course that in Pashtun culture, divorce is a stain which adheres to a woman’s reputation forever. But ‘halala’ is even worse than divorce. Halala transforms something…