Teachers face violence in northwestern Pakistan

Saadia Jan, 19, bites her nails uncertainly, as she perches on the window sill of her parent’s house in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Till a few days ago, Saadia had her future neatly chalked out in her mind. “I had decided to become a teacher. In fact, since I was 12 years old, I knew I wanted to be one,” she told IRIN. But, Saadia’s plans are now in shreds. “My family says it is too unsafe to teach and that I should opt for something else,” she said. The reason for her concern is the killing of a local teacher, Khatoon Bibi, 40, who was killed September 29 in the Mohmand Agency. According to eyewitness accounts, the teacher, who taught at a girls’ community school in the Atokhel area, was shot dead on her way home from school by unidentified assailants on a motorcycle. Read about the situation at IRIN News.