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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Isabel Choat

Malala and Kiran faced violence, threats and shame. Now their fathers want ‘all men to stand with women’

Two smiling South Asian men, one with his arm around the other.
Ziauddin Yousafzai, left, father of Malala, with Ranjit, whose fight for justice for his daughter after she was gang-raped at 13 is captured in the film To Kill A Tiger. Photograph: PR Image

The day Ranjit’s daughter was born, he distributed sweets to the entire village – not just because he was thrilled to be a father for the first time, but because he was father to a girl. “God heard my heart and granted my wish,” he says. His devotion to baby Kiran* was immediate and unshakeable. He would rush home from his work in the fields to spend time caring for her.

Millions of fathers around the world will relate to the joy Ranjit felt, but in deeply patriarchal rural India publicly celebrating the arrival of a girl is an unusual, even defiant, act.

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