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PAKISTAN'S NEW ARMY:
As a teenager, Zohra caused her family to be virtually ostracized by their neighbors in their village, Sachedino Shaikh, in the Sindh region of southern Pakistan. Her sin? She was a student.
Braving a distance of 10 kilometers on foot with her younger brothers to the nearest high school, Zohra was the only girl among 500 students. Because of the social system in which boys and girls are allowed only minimal contact, she could not even have a male friend.
But Zohra was determined to become a doctor. Her dream was to start a clinic in her hometown that would prevent the many annual deaths caused by snake bites and other epidemics.
"I felt lonely in my school as I was not allowed to play games with my class peers," Zohra recalled. "But I was determined to face the challenge."
Zohra never made it to medical school. But now aged 22 and -- to her parents' dismay -- still unmarried, she is curing another of her village's problems. She is teaching in a primary school for girls recently opened by a local non-governmental organization. Here, in a two-room concrete building, 30 girls learn how to read and write. Zohra is confident the school will be upgraded to a high school.
The school's goal is to lower Pakistan's staggering illiteracy rate for women. According to official figures, Pakistan's overall literacy rate last year was 38.9 percent. Half of all men are literate compared to only 27 percent of women. In the villages, literacy figures are even lower. In the rural region of Sindh, less than one percent of all girls can read and write.
Many non-governmental organizations working in the education sector believe that Pakistan's problem of illiteracy is, if anything, understated. Declining economic conditions in Pakistan continue to encourage child labour. Rather than attending school, many children are sent to work to supplement the family income. Moreover, the government's definition of literacy is vague. For example, anyone who can read from the Koran is considered literate, although many do so from rote without understanding the meaning of the words.
Another cause of illiteracy is that many schools in villages are not segregated by sex. Indeed, over the past two years, cutbacks have prevented the government from opening new separate girls' schools. While girls are permitted to attend the predominantly boys' schools, many parents are loath to have their daughters study in a coed atmosphere. Therefore, they prefer to keep them at home.
Indeed, Zohra never would have gone to school without the full support of her broadminded father, Nawaz Shaikh. The turning point for Shaikh, a farmer, came through his contact with Alfalah Welfare Trust, a non-governmental organization of doctors, businessmen and philanthropists based in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi. Years later, this very same organization would fund the new girls' primary school where Zohra now teaches.
Shaikh, who worked as volunteer in the Trust, learned firsthand the benefits of education while visiting the houses of Alfalah Welfare Trust members in Karachi. An particular influence was the Badar Siddiqui, the Trust's chief and a social worker, who convinced Shaikh that education, for both men and women, was critical.
But it wasn't easy. Shaikh's neighbors said his actions brought dishonor upon the entire village. He broke many local taboos, including a centuries-old tradition.
"As our forefathers did not send girls [to school], so why should we?" one woman said.
Others complained they needed their children to work. "We do not have enough to eat..., how can we send our children to school?" said another mother. Girls help both their fathers in the fields and their mothers in the kitchen.
Others were fearful that their daughters -- who are engaged at an early age, sometimes even from birth -- would, if educated, be unacceptable to future in-laws who themselves are illiterate.
"My relatives socially boycotted our family and disconnected relations with us," Shaikh said. "But I did not pay any heed to these things, because I knew that I was not doing anything wrong."
Zohra made the best of her high school education. With good grades, she was accepted to an intermediate college located 100 kilometers away from her village. Since the family could hardly manage to bear boarding expenses, she simply commuted daily.
"I used to cover the distance by bus. I was leaving home before dawn and returning by dusk," Zohra said.
This continued for a year until Zohra's excellent academic performance convinced the college principal and teachers that she could forgo her theory classes and attend practicals only on specific days in a week. A former teacher, who herself had a bachelors degree in science, began tutoring her at home for the science examination Zohra needed to enter medical school.
Though Zohra passed the examination, she did not do well enough to gain admission to medical school. It was a great set back for the 18-year-old who for days simply could not face the reality that her life-long dream had been shattered. But she found a new mission upon learning that Alfalah Welfare Trust established a primary school for girls right in her own village.
As the school is in one of Pakistan's remotest areas, trained female teachers from other parts refused to join it. Zohra was able to be employed as a teacher despite having no formal training. She also enrolled in the teachers' training program at Allama Iqbal Open University.
Zohra is now producing an army of literate girls from her village and nearby villages. But it is still an uphill battle to allow daughters to get higher education. It takes more than schools to change century-old thoughts and customs.
Shujauddin Qureshi works for the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP), a news wire service. He writes on women's issues, human rights, environment, culture, archaeology and economics.