At the Investing in the Future UN Women Conference in Sharjah, UAE, Newsweek Middle East‘s Arfa Shahid asked Malala Yousafzai’s father how he is raising feminist sons who ensure the empowerment of women. Malala has two younger brothers, Khushal Khan and Atal Khan. Here’s what Malala’s father Ziauddin Yousafzai, a U.N. Special Advisor on Global Education, told Newsweek Middle East:
“I think they are very good. They are fine. I should tell you that Khushal Khan is my son, 16-year-old. He’s very positive. He has to be. Because these rights of women are not given to them in the form of charity. It is their right. As a man, I sometimes feel ashamed when I see man’s history filled with oppression of women. And this is a sickness, when men fail to believe in a woman’s ability. We have a very patriarchal thinking. It has been happening for centuries. Even here in the UK, people who have come from Pakistan and have been living in the UK for 30-40 years, they still carry this sort of patriarchal values with them.”
