Gulalai Ismail

Gulalai Ismail (born c. 1986) is a Pashtun human rights activist and chairperson of Aware Girls from Pakistani.

Ismail was brought up in Peshawar, the daughter of a human rights activist.[1] She established the organisation Aware Girls in 2002, aiming to challenge the culture of violence and the oppression of women in the rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa area in the north west of Pakistan. In an interview in 2011, she said:[2]

"I set up Aware Girls when I was 16 because all around me I saw girls being treated differently to boys. My girl cousin was 15 when her marriage was arranged to someone twice her age; she couldn't finish her education while my boy cousins were [doing so]. This was considered normal. Girls have internalised all this discrimination – a woman who suffers violence but doesn't say anything is much admired in the village as a role model. A good woman submits to her husband or father. Aware Girls raised awareness of equal status. We did training that women have human rights, and taught leadership skills and how to negotiate within their families and with their parents to get education and to have control over their own lives."

As well as Aware Girls, which she continues to chair, Ismail set up the Seeds of Peace network in 2010, training young people in human rights and political leadership and encouraging the participation of women in politics in Pakistan.[2] According to the World Humanist Congress, "her work is characterised by promoting peace and pluralism; challenging religious extremism and militancy; promoting good governance in areas stricken by militancy, providing civic education to young people; strengthening democracy; and political mainstreaming of young women."[3]

She studied biotechnology at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, graduating in 2012.[3]

She won the 2009 YouthActionNet Fellowship, and the 2013 Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy; and was acknowledged as one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013 by Foreign Policy magazine.[1] Between 2010 and 2012 she was a Board Member of the Women’s Global Network on Reproductive Rights, and between 2009 and 2011 was on the Executive Committee of the International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organization.[3] In August 2014 she was awarded the International Humanist of the Year Award by the International Humanist and Ethical Union at the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, England.[4] She received 215 Common Wealth Youth Award for Excellence in Development, under the theme of Democracy and Human Rights. [5]

References

  1. 1 2 Interview with Gulalai Ismail, The World Justice Project, 15 October 2013. Retrieved 10 August 2014
  2. 1 2 Madeleine Bunting, "Young women fight the 'Talibanisation' of rural Pakistan", The Guardian, 16 May 2011. Retrieved 10 August 2014
  3. 1 2 3 Speakers, World Humanist Congress 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014
  4. ↑ "Gulalai Ismail wins International Humanist of the Year Award", British Humanist Association, 9 August 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014
  5. ↑ http://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/2307-pakistani-activist-gulalai-ismail-wins-commonwealth-youth-award

External links

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