Pakistan girls boxers fight for place in the ring

Girls and young women in Pakistan's Lyari neighbourhood are using boxing to challenge social pressure that says sport is not for them.

Thirteen-year-old Hoorain Zahra trains in a modest room in the Karachi district, inspired by 21-year-old Aliya Soomro, who won an international bout in Bangkok last year.

Women boxers recently drew wider attention when Fatima Zahra, 22, became Pakistan's first female Commonwealth Games boxing medallist, winning bronze in the 60kg category in Glasgow in late July.

Hoorain Zahra said some people believe boxing is not for girls and that girls should not go outside because they are not safe. “But it is not possible to live without going outside, you have to go out,” she said.

Coach Ustad Younis Qambrani, 56, said he opened his boxing gym to girls more than a decade ago and that his two daughters were the first to begin training there.

Lyari has long been known for producing athletes, but it has also faced poverty, gang violence and conservative restrictions on girls' activities. Some parents, including those of Hoorain Zahra and Soomro, support their daughters' boxing ambitions.

Soomro said girls have as much right as boys to take up sport. “Our society regards girls as very weak,” she said. “But I believe girls can do everything, sometimes even more than men.”