I have led an unusual life. I have buried a father killed at age 50 and two brothers killed in the prime of their lives. I raised my children as a single mother when my husband was arrested and held for eight years without a conviction - a hostage to my political career.

I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a woman. The clerics took to the mosque saying that Pakistan had thrown itself outside the Muslim world and the Muslim umar by voting for a woman, that a woman had usurped a man's place in the Islamic society.

Dictatorships by their nature are unrepresentative as they neglect the social needs of the people.

Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.

Being in jail is difficult too because it's like being in a graveyard, you can't do much.

Freedom is not an end. Freedom is a beginning.

Pakistans future viability, stability and security lie in empowering its people and building political institutions. My goal is to prove that the fundamental battle for the hearts and minds of a generation can be accomplished only under democracy.