Translator: Rosa Baranda Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
I want you all to please take a few seconds
and think of that one thing that you've always wanted to talk about,
but you couldn't
just because the society doesn't approve of it.
Do you?
I'm sure we all do. I've had a lot of such moments.
The first thing that I want to talk about is leftover food.
About 11 years back, when I started talking to people about it,
I got very funny questions.
What happens is, we go to a restaurant -
I don't know about you,
but for me, I can hardly finish the full portion that I order -
I pay the bill, I get up, and I leave.
What happens to the food that you've left in your plate?
It gets thrown away.
That food gets thrown away.
One more time: that food gets thrown away.
What can you do about it?
When I started talking to people -
and I told you I got very funny questions -
one of such questions was,
"What's the use?"
Really? What's the use?
795 million people in this world
do not have enough food to eat.
A world where 1.3 billion tons of food is being wasted every year,
and people ask me, What's the use?
There were other funny questions as well:
"What are you going to do with it?"
OK, I'll tell you what I'm going to do with it.
So, the amount of portion that I can eat - I'll take that.
The other part that I cannot eat -
I separate that, I just get it packed, take it with me,
share it with the first needy person I see.
That could be the guard in your street,
that could be the guy who comes to wash or clean your windscreens,
and we just shoo them away,
that could be the little girl selling flowers in the market.
It could be anyone.
Mind you, this is fresh food.
You separated the portion, and you can even have it yourself.
And for example, if there's even one-eighth of a steak left,
and you get it packed,
maybe that's all the protein this little kid will get for days.
And I'm saying this because I know somebody
who told me that for one whole year,
all they had was yogurt and bread.
Yogurt or roti.
The second stigma I'm going to talk about is mental health.
If I ask you guys, "Do you know anyone who is suffering from a mental illness?"
can you tell me?
Even if you do, you're not going to raise your hands.
Thank you.
Because mental illness is, again, another thing we don't talk about.
We don't want to associate ourselves with people
who are actually going through anxiety, depression.
I don't even want to talk to my friend who started taking therapy.
We think we take therapy because we're crazy. No.
We take therapy because we don't want to go mad.
We don't want to get crazier than what we already are.
But I'm going to tell you -
and I have no shame in saying this -
that I suffered a very, very bad form of postnatal depression
after I had my second child.
Postnatal depression is depression that a mother feels
after the delivery of a baby.
One in four mothers,
one in four.
Please register this:
one in four mothers in Pakistan
go through postnatal depression.
You can see symptoms like crying, irritability,
your sleeping and eating patterns are disturbed,
you would cry without a reason,
and there're even instances
where the mother starts disliking the child.
She's not crazy.
It's a symptom she's going through.
You know, I say this with a very heavy heart,
but that is the time when a mother really needs support.
That's the time when women need support, they need treatment
because a healthy mother
is what gives the family all the support she can.
My husband identified it for me.
We took therapy. I got well.
And not just this -
we actually started helping women from the low-income groups step out of it.
We have 15 such young women who had little babies, no support system,
but we helped them only through self-help groups,
which is nothing - you don't even need mental health specialists for it,
just support groups that give them a little support to come out of it.
(Applause)
And the third thing - I intentionally kept it for the last,
not because this is the topic people are talking about
these days, unfortunately,
but because I am a mother of two.
And I understand how difficult it is in a society like ours,
where every driver is chacha,
where every maid is masi,
where every other relative
who comes to the house from the extended family is your mamu,
how difficult it is to tell my five-year-old child
that, "No, they cannot touch you if you don't like it.
They cannot hold you if you don't like it."
We feel confused all the time.
I have been very confused how to talk to my child about this.
How do I tell him that it is OK to scream,
it is OK to say,
"No, please don't touch me. I feel uncomfortable"?
And you know what?
Ninety percent of the times, the victim, they know their abusers.
Ninety percent of the times, the child knows the abuser well.
So, what can I do? What can you do?
Please don't judge kids.
Let them come and tell you what they're telling you.
If you have children around you -
I'm sure most of you are not parents, but when you will be parents,
you'll know how difficult it is to tell your child
that this is the difference between a good touch and a bad touch.
But we have to do this.
Unfortunately, we need to get out of this right now.
The stigma needs to be broken.
And in the end,
I just want you guys to take three things from my talk today.
Please, when you go back home today, just close your eyes for a few seconds,
and think about hunger, which we overlook all the time,
mental health, which we overlook most of the time,
and child abuse.
Not just putting hashtags on Facebook.
No. That won't be enough.
That will not be enough, trust me, please.
You will need to stop staying silent about it.
You need to reset the society,
you need to control-alt-delete reset.
(Applause)
Thank you.