This TED Talk features women's rights activist Shod Begum, recorded live at TED Women 2018.

I'm here to tell you how change is happening at a local level in Pakistan, because women are finding their place in the political process.

I want to take you all on a journey to the

place I was raised north-west Pakistan called DIR. Deer was founded in the 17th century. It was a

princely state until its merger with Pakistan in 1969.

Our prince, Nawab Shah Jahan, reserved the right to wear white,

the color of honor, but only for himself.

He didn't believe in educating his people.

And at the time of my birth in 1979,

only 5% of boys and 1% of girls

received any schooling at all.

I was one among that one person.

Growing up, I was very close to my father.

He is a pharmacy doctor, and he sent me to school.

Every day I would go to his clinic when my lessons finished.

He is a wonderful man in a well-respected community leader.

He was leading a welfare organization, and I would go with him to the social and political

gatherings to listen and talk to the local men about our social and economic problems.

However, when I was 16, my father asked me to stop coming with him to the public gatherings.

Now, I was a young woman, and my place was in the home. I was very upset, but most of my family

members, they were happy with this decision. It was very difficult

for me to sit back in the home and not be involved. It took two years that finally my family

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