Unfortunately, the north also houses some of the poorest and least privileged of the country. Labor can be as easily bought and sold...

For the first few years of my life, all my immediate family lived in a low-income, one-roomed apartment in the city within a close-knit...

The person I am today is not even close to the person I was 20 years ago, and I’m proud of that...

One could say that I had creative parents, another could say they were nature-loving hippies, and both would be correct...

My dad was an engineer for a federal contractor and my mom was a homemaker. We ended up having to move around a lot, but eventually...

Located at the extreme north of Pakistan, Nathia Gali is considered to be one of the most beautiful and scenic places in Pakistan...

I loved my mom, but I didn’t get much time with her because she had bad lungs. She already had asthma, but her job only worsened...

They say that daughters are a blessing, but that was not my reality. You see...for years, I blamed myself for my mother’s death...

As one of my favorite poems says, “Thursday’s child has far to go.” I was destined to go afar...

I went to public school until my first year of middle school, and after that, I left and went to school on an army base...

My parents taught us to work hard, help our neighbors and be respectful of others. My mum worked in an office and...

Girls married right out of high school at 18 in my neighborhood, like an unspoken tradition. I thought I’d follow the same path...

A bunch of wildflowers left my hands and dropped upon his grave. It was clear that the goodbyes were final. I was burying my husband...

It was a beautiful, crisp, clear morning. My only regret was that my dad wasn’t by my side as he should have been...

I was expected to labor for the rest of my days and help support my family like every other child in my village. I was not supposed to be...

Traditionally, Indian families want boys, but as they already had a son, my parents welcomed my birth with all their heart...

In fact, I was 16th in the rankings, including my father’s children from his two older wives, who each had six children before...

I had what should have been an idyllic childhood, playing on the beaches and forests that surrounded our home...

That year, there was a massacre in an eastern village. Nearly 600 were killed with sprays of bullets and machetes...

Although my parents worked very hard, we were a poor family. We often didn’t have the money for heating in the winter...