Girls Christian Highschool in Pakistan
2009-05-07
The Taliban is streangthening their positions in Pakistan and the situation for pakistani women is becoming even more difficult. In the Swat Valley close to 200 girl schools have been blown up and destroyed. And in Malakand the government recently signed a peace treaty with the Taliban, exchanging peace for sharia laws. But instead of putting down their arms the Taliban went south. Today, full war has broken out in the Swat Valley and hundreds of thousands of people are on the run.Abbottabad Christian Girls High School is a haven in the troubled north as one of few Christian girl schools in Pakistan with around 250 students. Half of them are from Abbottabad, a town in the violent NWFP. The rest of them are boarding school students living far away from their often very poor families, and some of them are from the Swat Valley.The christians only make out a few percent of Pakistans 167 million population. They often live in small colonies, or slums where the majority don't have acces to electricity, clean water or health care.
Photos by Anders Hansson.