In my tribe, the Dard Shin, girls’ dreams are often over by 13. It is time we cleared a path towards them all fulfilling their potential

I sit my office in Srinagar surrounded by the steady, safe hum of the secondary school where I work. As academic head, my mind is occupied with curriculums and pupil progress. But my soul is 130km north of the Jammu and Kashmir city, behind the jagged peaks of the Razdan Pass, in the silence of the Tulail valley.

I am a daughter of the Dard Shin. We are a tribe whose history is etched in the Himalayan granite by the glacial water of the Kishanganga River.