Khalida Brohi

Women’s rights activist and entrepreneur
In the tribal region where she was born, Khalida Brohi founded an organization to end honor killings and empower Pakistani women.

Why you should listen

When she was a teenager in the Balochistan region of Pakistan, Khalida Brohi witnessed the honor killing of her friend, who had married for love. Today, she's the founder and executive director of the Sughar Empowerment Society. The nonprofit, whose name means "skilled and confident woman", provides Pakistani tribal women with the education, skills, and income opportunities to empower them to take a leadership role in their households, their communities, and the world.

As she works to reduce endemic violence against women at substantial personal risk, she says, "Not doing this work would kill me. Doing this work would keep me alive.”

What others say

“Khalida has an ability to see the miracle in everything.” — Ashoka India, 2011

Khalida Brohi’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Khalida Brohi

Live from TEDGlobal

Sideways solutions and inverted explanations: A recap of session 10 of TEDGlobal 2014

October 9, 2014

The thinkers in this session, “Lateral Action,” don’t go about creating change in the usual ways. Here, their unexpected approaches: Argentinian singer-songwriter Juana Molina opens the session with a hypnotizing performance on the electric guitar and a rack of pedals that layer sounds into gorgeously complex song structures. Singing calmly behind layers of chords, she mixes […]

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