A group of female activists have set up a women’s only jirga in Saidu Sharif. According to foreign media, 16-year-old Tahira was murdered in a horrific acid attack last year but her poor parents’ calls for justice were ignored. Pakistani officials and the police turned a blind eye while the prime suspect — the girl’s abusive husband — lived in freedom until the case was taken up by Pakistan’s first female jirga, a community assembly set up to win justice for women in a region wracked by immense discrimination. Pakistan’s north-western Swat valley has become synonymous with abysmal women’s rights. It was here that the Taliban shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head last year for campaigning for women’s education.