Pakistani girls walk in shoes of young activist

As Pakistani school girl Malala Yousufzai recovers from bullet wounds in a British hospital, her classmates say they will not let the Taliban extremists who put her there force them to quit school.

“Though we are very sad for our friend Malala, such mean actions would never discourage us and will never keep our attention from getting education,” said Rida, a ninth-grade schoolmate of Malala’s at Khushal School in Mingora, Swat Valley.

“Education is our right given to us by our religion and no forces can stop us from getting it,” says Rida, whose full name is being withheld by USA TODAY to prevent retaliation against her.

Malala’s hometown in the lush Swat Valley became the center of Taliban violence in Pakistan after the group pushed its way into power in 2007. Staunch opponents of female education, the Taliban terrorized students and teachers, bombed hundreds of schools and forced many others to close their doors to girls because of the risk.

But a major offensive by the Pakistan military two years later largely drove the Taliban from the area and allowed young girls to go back to their classrooms.

Earlier this month, 15-year-old Malala, an outspoken advocate for girls’ education, was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban on her way home from school. The group has vowed to finish her off, saying she had been acting against Islam in her activism.

Even so, the attack on Malala has shown their threat continues. But the girls in her hometown say they can’t let the fear of extremists put them off again.

“We saw three bleak years where our schools were torched and blasted and we were forcefully stopped from going to school — we got education secretly,” said Kausar, a 10th-grader at Government High School No.1 in Saidu Sharif, Swat, whose full name is also being withheld by USA TODAY.

“That was the worst time of our lives but we have never given up our education.”

The official literacy rate in Pakistan is 56% and 40% of females can read. Literacy rates for women in Pakistan have increased from 15% to 40% since the early 1980s. Pakistan’s government credits the rise to public campaigns to get more girls in school.

Malala became famous for a blog she wrote for the BBC in 2009 under a pseudonym about her oppressive life under the Taliban regime and its repression of education of girls. When she was shot for it, Pakistanis across the political, ethnic and religious spectrum came forward to denounce the Taliban.

In the south of the country, where it is safer for girls to go to school, Malala is considered a hero.

“I want to do what Malala did,” said Swaliha Abdullah, a 12-year-old eighth-grader at Eck Eck Government School, a Karachi public school. “She saved her school by writing about it.”

In Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, girls go to school unhindered by extremists. Instead it is poverty that most affects girls’ schooling as well as that of boys.

At Karachi’s P and T Government Girls’ School, girls in pigtails held in place by red ribbons and in the traditional blue-and-white shalwar kameez tunic and trousers, the everyday style of Pakistani females, peek out of the classrooms as the end of the school day approaches.

“My mom wants me to be a doctor, but I want to be a teacher,” said Wajiha Ashfaq, 14, an eighth-grade student there. Her best friend, Fouzia Ayaz Ahmed, wants to be a doctor.

Fouzia’s father is a driver and Wajiha’s has a government job. They live in a low-income neighborhood close by and walk to school together. Their little sisters tag along.

“I have never taken time off school except once when I had fever,” boasted Laiba Ashfaq, Wajiha’s sister, who is in the fourth grade.

She explains that she loves school and English is her favorite subject. Laiba wants to be a doctor when she grows up.

Rich Pakistanis send their children to private school while poorer children often attend those run by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Citizens’ Foundation, which is supported by private donors. In many of these schools, tuition is waived and the NGO pays for uniforms and books.

Equally important to keeping girls in school is to give them the means to help support the family so they are not forced to work. Nighat Abbasi of the Inner Wheel Club, the NGO that adopted P and T Government Girls’ School, organizes programs such as in tie-dying so that girls have a way to augment the family income while staying in school.

Anam Basri, a classmate of Malala at the Khushal School in Mingora, says the Taliban is naive if it thinks it can frighten girls from pursuing an education.

“They will never be successful in their evil thinking and actions to stop us from education,” she says.