Pakistan’s Burka Avenger to fight extremism for UN

Move over Superman and Batman. Here comes Pakistan’s superheroine Burka Avenger who might soon be spreading her message of peace and tolerance on behalf of the UN. The Emmy-nominated animated TV series has won global accolades since its 2013 launch, with its female protagonist — a teacher called Jiya — putting on the Islamic veil at night and transforming into an all-action heroine to tackle social ills. Now the UN is seeking to tap her popularity as it ramps up a campaign that emphasises women’s role in peacebuilding to combat extremism. 

“We have a lot of shared goals,” the series’ creator, Pakistani pop star Haroon Rashid, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Islamabad.

“The whole concept (of Burka Avenger) came  about because I was reading about girls’ schools being shut down and bombed by extremists, and women and girls are threatened with violence. That’s why the superheroine was created,” he said. Rashid will be speaking at a UN Women conference in the Thai capital Bangkok this week which will look at using creative approaches to promote women’s role in peacebuilding. 

Although there is no official partnership yet, the UN agency and Rashid both said they  were keen to explore collaboration, including by making Burka Avenger an  ambassador. “Burka Avenger can be a great messenger not only for women’s issues but because it’s animation, you can highlight very sensitive issues, it makes them (appear) softer,”  Rashid said. 

Burka Avenger was launched first in Pakistan, then Afghanistan, India and this year in Indonesia. It has been produced in different languages including Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, Pashto and Indonesian. The series has won numerous accolades, including the Peabody Award, International Gender Equity Prize and the Asian Media Award.