Farooq, from Punjab province's historic city of
Bahawalpur, is one of 19 women who have become pilots in thePakistan Air Force
over the last decade - there are five other female fighter pilots, but they
have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat.
"I don't feel any different. We do the same
activities, the same precision bombing," the soft-spoken 26-year-old said
of her male colleagues at Mushaf base in north Pakistan, where neatly piled
warheads sit in sweltering 50 degree Celsius heat (122 F).
A growing number of women have joined Pakistan's
defense forces in recent years as attitudes towards women change.
"Because of terrorism and our geographical
location it's very important that we stay on our toes," said Farooq,
referring to Taliban militancy and a sharp rise in sectarian violence.
Deteriorating security in neighboring Afghanistan,
where U.S.-led troops are preparing to leave by the end of next year, and an
uneasy relationship with arch rival India to the east add to the mix.
Farooq, whose slim frame offers a study in contrast
with her burly male colleagues, was at loggerheads with her widowed and
uneducated mother seven years ago when she said she wanted to join the air
force.
"In our society most girls don't even think
about doing such things as flying an aircraft," she said.
Family pressure against the traditionally male
domain of the armed forces dissuaded other women from taking the next step to
become combat ready, air force officials said. They fly slower aircraft
instead, ferrying troops and equipment around the nuclear-armed country of 180
million.
Centuries-old rule in the tribal belt area along the
border with Afghanistan, where rape, mutilation and the killing of women are
ordered to mete out justice, underlines conservative Pakistan's failures in
protecting women's rights.
But women are becoming more aware of those rights
and signing up with the air force is about as empowering as it gets.
"More and more ladies are joining now,"
said Nasim Abbas, Wing Commander of Squadron 20, made up of 25 pilots,
including Farooq, who fly Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jets.
"It's seen as less of a taboo. There's been a
shift in the nation's, the society's, way of thinking," Abbas told Reuters
on the base in Punjab's Sargodha district, about 280 km (175 miles) east of the
capital Islamabad, home base to many jets in the 1965 and 1971 wars with India.
There are now about 4,000 women in Pakistan's armed
forces, largely confined to desk jobs and medical work.
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