Remember the 15 year old girl who got a bullet to her head in Pakistan for daring to promote education? Well…take a look at the article below….5 WOMEN teachers! Murdered! And why? my guess is because they dared to be women and dared to teach.
I can’t help but think of Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. I interviewed and spoke to her many times before she was assassinated on December 27, 2007. We had many discussions about her country and about education. Because of our close age, and friends in common, we had much to talk about. PM Bhutto was educated in the United States (Radcliffe College at Harvard) (with women I know) and she had a strong appreciation for education for women. She returned to Pakistan after many years in exile with a goal to help her country. It didn’t quite work out that way for her….
(Consider this…..as we leave Afghanistan, the Taliban moves back in full force. They are the ones who in about 1994 took over Afghanistan and moved it towards very strict Sharia law. What is going to happen to the women and girls? No…I don’t have the answer….but I sure can spot the obvious growing crisis …)
Gunmen kill 5 teachers, 2 others, in ambush in Pakistan
Published January 01, 2013
| Associated Press
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Gunmen killed five female teachers and two other people on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center in northwest Pakistan, officials said.
The van was transporting teachers and aid workers from the center in conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Two health workers, one man and one woman, were also killed and the driver was wounded.
The attack was a reminder of the risks faced by educators and aid workers, especially women, in an area where Islamic militants often target women and girls trying to get an education. Many militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province oppose female education and have blown up schools and killed female educators as a way to discourage girls from getting an education.
In a case in the same province that gained international attention, a Taliban gunman shot 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai in the head last October for criticizing the militants and promoting girls’ education. She is currently recovering in Britain.
The workers were on their way home from a community center in the town of Swabi where they were working at a primary school and adjoining medical center. Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire with automatic weapons, said Javed Akhtar, executive director of the non-governmental organization Support With Working Solutions.
The NGO conducts programs in the education and health sectors and runs a primary school and a medical clinic at the community center in Swabi, he said.
He provided the details on who was killed.
Swabi police chief Abdur Rasheed said most of the women killed were between the ages of 20 and 22. He said the four gunmen who used two motorcycles fled the scene and have not been apprehended.
No group has claimed responsibility for the incident.
