Zunaira Qayyum, who will turn 15 in July next year, is currently reading Crime and Punishment, arguably the most well-known work of Russian master Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
A voracious reader, the ninth-grade student races and, at times, slogs through the daunting tome, balancing it with her studies and extracurricular activities. “I should be able to finish the book in the next few days,” she tells Eos in a phone interview.
Finishing Dostoyesky’s psychological masterpiece is just a stepping stone for the young woman from Balochistan’s impoverished Hub district. Zunaira aspires to become the secretary-general of the United Nations (UN). “There is yet to be a female secretary-general of the UN and I want to change that,” she says with confidence.
PUTTING IN THE HARD HOURS
Zunaira has already racked up a string of achievements that belie her age. Her research on the impacts of climate change-induced floods on girls’ secondary education in Hub was among the winners of a competition, organised via the collaboration between a host of UN agencies and the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme in 2023.
Zunaira Qayyum was the youngest delegate at COP 29 in Baku last year and has been appointed as a youth advocate by Unicef. But the teen climate champion from impoverished Balochistan’s Hub district has her sights set on a much bigger goal…
The competition, called Policy Research Challenge, focused on enhancing research capabilities and promoting the active involvement of adolescents and the youth to create lasting impacts for 2030 and beyond.
“My research found that climate change in Balochistan disproportionately affects women and girls, limiting their access to education, health and livelihood opportunities,” she tells Eos. “It highlighted how gender inequality increases vulnerability to climate impacts, while women’s voices remain largely excluded from climate decision-making and local adaptation planning,” she adds.
This success would lead to her selection, through Unicef, as one of the participants of a regional youth advocacy group in Kathmandu, Nepal. “The training and the climate advocacy workshop [in 2023] helped me understand the linkage between climate change, human rights and young people’s empowerment.”
At last year’s Conference of the Parties (COP 29) in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, Zunaira was the youngest delegate at the conference and was one of 20 youth delegates from South Asia.
In February this year, Unicef appointed Zunaira as its youth advocate for climate action and girls’ empowerment in Pakistan. The announcement came during the Dawn Media Group’s ‘Breathe Pakistan’ conference on climate change, where Zunaira was a speaker.
AGAINST THE ODDS
Zunaira’s efforts and achievement are made all the more important by the status of her own province: ravaged by climate change and trailing the national average on literacy as well as other development indicators.
Zunaira was born in Zehri — in Balochistan’s central Khuzdar district — a deeply tribal-cum-patriarchal society, where female education is said to be abysmal. The situation is comparatively better in the rest of Balochistan, where literacy stands at 42 percent, but still lags behind the national average of 60 percent, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2024-25. Female literacy in Balochistan is estimated at 36.8 percent, against a national average of 51.9 percent.
Zunaira’s parents decided to relocate to the city of Hub in 2019. The city in Balochistan’s south is a major commercial centre due to its proximity to Karachi. It also afforded greater educational opportunities for Zunaira and her four siblings, three younger sisters and one younger brother.
Tragedy struck in 2020 when Zunaira lost her father, a government worker who also ran a small grocery shop in Hub. She says her mother, Naseema Rasool, stepped up to ensure that Zunaira and her siblings were always provided for. “My mother runs a beauty parlour and also does embroidery of traditional Baloch attire.”
Since then, Zunaira has completed a certification in the English language from a local language centre in Hub, where she has been teaching English for over a year now. She also teaches the language to her four siblings who, she adds, also share her love for the written word.
FIGHTING THE BIG FIGHT
Zunaira says she aspires to be the best version of herself so she can better tackle the challenges facing her home province. And it is a gargantuan task.
Balochistan’s education minister Raheela Hameed Khan Durrani recently said that there are over three million out-of-school children in Balochistan. This is despite the fact that Article 25-A of Pakistan’s constitution guarantees free and compulsory education for children aged 5 to 16.
Aside from challenges of education, law and order, health, road network and digital connectivity, Balochistan also remains in the throes of climate change. Torrential rains and floods often wreak havoc in the province, most notably in 2022, while parts of the province are also regularly hit by droughts.
According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, Balochistan recorded 42 percent less rainfall during September to October this year as compared to the previous year. During this period, temperatures also remained 0.9 degrees Celsius above the average.
Zunaira is aware of the challenges. “Over the last several years, I have been vying for climate-friendly policies through my work,” she says. “The reason is Balochistan is vulnerable to climate change, affecting the lives of children, too.”
Despite having age on her side, Zunaira knows that such changes don’t happen overnight. “Sometimes it takes 80 to 90 years to bring about change, as it is a long and slow process,” she says.
“I am the first female to get education from my mother’s side of the family,” Zunaira tells Eos. “This is why I always say I am blessed and this is what pushes me to work for the education of the women in Balochistan,” she continues. There will be redemption in suffering, she says, pointing out that it is a recurring theme in Dostoyevsky’s works.
And there seems to be challenges galore for the young activist, including from unexpected sources. While Zunaira and her family were attending a wedding in Khuzdar recently, some people broke into their home in Hub. “They caused significant damage to my personal belongings and, most distressingly, tore up my passport, Unicef documents, shields and trophies,” she tells Eos.
But spurred on by Dostoyevsky’s words, regarding pain and suffering being always inevitable for a large heart and deep intelligence, she remains committed to her goal: to improve the lot of Balochistan and become the first female secretary-general of the United Nations.
The writer is a member of staff.
He can be contacted at: akbar.notezai@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, EOS, December 21st, 2025
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