This TED Talk features writer and social worker Shame Akhtar, recorded live at TED Women 2017.

A room full of boys, a girl child, hardly nine or ten years old. She is sitting in the center of room surrounded by books.

She is only girl among boys and is barely missing her female cousins and friends who

are inside the homes instead of this school because they are not allowed to get education alongside boys.

There isn't a single functional girls' school in her village.

She is born in a Baloch conservative tribe where women and girls are matter of honor.

She is eldest in her family and when she is about to be born,

her parents wanted a baby boy, but their bad luck a baby girl arrived.

It was customary in her family to keep girls inside the homes.

But her uncle, who is university graduated,

he wanted to give her an opportunity to see the world to be part of the society.

Luckily, she has a name that could be used for both men and women.

So he saw a chance to change her course of life.

So he decided to raise her as a boy.

At three-month-old, she went from her being baby girl to baby boy. She's given boys get

up. She's allowed to go outside, get education alongside boys. She's free. She's confident. She observes, she notes Simal, everyday injustices faced by women and girls in her village.

When newspaper arrives at home, she watches, it passes from eldest men to youngest men. By the time when women got hold of the

paper, it is old news. She completes her eight grade year. Now fear starts to come in.

This will be end of her education.

Because the only option high school for further study is five kilometers away.

Boys have bicycles, they are free.

But she knows her father will not allow her to travel on her own,

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