Malala Yousafzai and her campaign for girls’ education may have missed out on the Nobel Peace Prize, but in a predominantly Islamic country of 190m, Pakistani girls continue to be the biggest losers, being denied schooling as a result either of tradition or lack of resources.
马拉拉•尤萨福扎伊(Malala Yousafzai)和她倡导的女孩受教育权活动可能错失诺贝尔和平奖(Nobel Peace Prize)，但在一个1.9亿人口、以伊斯兰教为主的国家，巴基斯坦女孩将继续是最大输家，她们要么因为传统、要么因为没钱而失去受教育的机会。
Ms Yousafzai captured global attention after she was shot by the Taliban a year ago on her way home from school in retaliation for her advocacy of girls’ education.
一年前，尤萨福扎伊在放学的路上，遭到塔利班枪手的袭击，这是塔利班对她倡导女孩受教育权而实施的报复。此后，尤萨福扎伊吸引了全球的关注。
“Everyone wants to see Malala win. She will make us proud as Pakistanis,” says Umaruddin Mayo, a 45-year-old farmer in Bagh Shah, shortly before the prize she had been favoured to win went instead to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
“所有人都希望看到马拉拉获奖。她将让我们因为身为巴基斯坦人而自豪，”住在巴沙尔的45岁农民乌玛鲁丁•梅奥(Umaruddin Mayo)表示。结果，很多人期待由马拉拉获得的诺贝尔和平奖，颁给了禁止化学武器组织(Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons)。
Mr Mayo himself donated a small slice of land from his five-acre cotton farm for a girls’ school for this village of 2,000 people in central Pakistan. But in the 20 years since it was built, the school has not educated a single young woman, instead becoming a convenient storage spot for firewood and cattle fodder.
梅奥从他5公顷的棉花地里捐出一小块地方，给了巴基斯坦中部这个拥有2000人的村子的女子学校。但自建校以来的20年里，这个学校还没有给一位年轻女子授过课，而是变成了柴草和牛饲料的便利仓库。
“Powerful landowners including politicians have blocked the school from functioning. We have never had any classes and school-going girls have been deprived of education,” Mr Mayo says as he walks around the vacant building.
梅奥在这所空无一人的建筑周围散步时表示：“包括政治人士在内的有权势的土地所有者禁止该学校开课。我们这所学校从未上过课，适龄女童被剥夺了受教育的机会。”
In spite of Ms Yousafzai’s high-profile advocacy, there is little evidence of much improvement across Pakistan. Non-profit organisations have reported numerous ‘ghost’ schools like the one in Bagh Shah village.
尽管尤萨福扎伊的倡议令人瞩目，但整个巴基斯坦几乎没有出现在这方面有明显改善的证据。据非盈利组织报告，有很多像巴沙尔村女校这样空无一人的“幽灵”学校。
What is more, many Pakistanis including Mr Mayo believe that a Nobel for Malala would not deliver any immediate boost to the prospects of better education for girls.
另外，包括梅奥在内的很多巴基斯坦人认为，就算马拉拉获得诺贝尔奖，也不会立即改善该国女孩获得更好教育的前景。
The Taliban renewed its threats against Ms Yousafzai after she won Europe’s Sakharov human rights prize this week, but critics warn that even if the threat of Taliban violence were removed, opportunities for girls in Pakistan would remain hostage to a variety of factors, including corruption. Education is considered a low priority in a country where politics are influenced heavily by the armed forces.
马拉拉上周获得欧洲萨哈罗夫人权奖(Sakharov Prize)后，塔利班重新发出了针对她的威胁，但批评者警告称，即便塔利班撤销了暴力威胁，巴基斯坦女童的受教育机会仍将受到很多因素的制约，包括腐败。在一个政治受到军队严重影响的国家，教育在优先顺序的清单上地位较低。
Pakistan’s literacy rate for women, at 40 per cent, remains considerably below the rate of 69 per cent for men. A 2004 study assessing girls’ access to education put Pakistan at the bottom of a list of 17 Asian countries.
巴基斯坦的女性识字率为40%，远远低于男性的69%。根据2004年一项评估女童受教育权的研究，巴基斯坦在17个亚洲国家中垫底。
UN officials blame Pakistan’s meagre spending on education on the fact that its economy is one of the world’s worst performers. Spending as a share of gross domestic product, at about 2 per cent annually, is roughly half the global average.
联合国(UN)官员将巴基斯坦教育支出微薄归咎于下列事实：该国经济在全球表现最差国家之列。该国年度教育支出占国内生产总值(GDP)大约2%，差不多是全球平均水平的一半。
The south Asian country’s economy grew 3.7 per cent in the 12 months that ended in June, only marginally above annual population growth, which UN officials put at around 3 per cent.
在截至今年6月的12个月里，这个南亚国家的经济增长3.7%，略高于年度人口增速（联合国官员估计该国年度人口增速在3%左右）。
Only about 1.5 per cent of the population pays income tax, resulting in a tax-to-GDP ratio of less than 9 per cent, among the lowest in the world.
在巴基斯坦，只有约1.5%的人口缴付所得税，这导致该国税收与GDP的比率低于9%，为全球最低之列。
“For a fundamentally dysfunctional economy like Pakistan, you will not be able to fix education . . . unless you fix the tax system and get this economy moving,” says one UN official.
联合国一官员表示：“对于巴基斯坦这种在根本上运转不良的经济体而言，你无法搞好教育……除非你整改税收体系，使经济运转起来。”
Influential landowners and a corruption-ridden administration system are also a deterrent. Activists in the education sector say teachers often are absent for days or weeks at a time, especially in rural areas, but are seldom suspended or dismissed from service. “You have schools for girls which have been lying unused for years and no one seems to put these empty buildings back to work,” says Mr Mayo.
有影响力的土地所有者和充斥腐败的行政体系也是一个制约因素。教育活动人士表示，教师往往几天甚至几周不来学校，特别是在农村地区，但他们很少被停职或开除。梅奥表示：“多年来，女校一直不开课，似乎没有人想把这些空置的建筑重新运转起来。”
Haji Mohammad Ramzan, a farm owner in nearby Telian village, lamented the loss of his village’s school last year after the government merged it with another. “Today, we have no school. Even if the boys can travel to another school somewhere far, the girls must stay at home,” he says.
在附近的Telian村，让农场主Haji Mohammad Ramzan感到遗憾的是，去年政府把他们村的学校与另一所学校合并后，他们村就没有学校了。他表示：“现在我们没有学校了。即使男孩子能够走很远的路到另一所学校读书，但女孩子必须留在家里。”
While Ms Yousafzai’s ordeal has shone a spotlight on the problems posed by Taliban violence and Islamist extremism, many Pakistanis say the obstacles to education of young women precede the rise, some 30 years ago, of the militant group in the country.
尽管尤萨福扎伊的苦难经历让世人关注塔利班暴力和伊斯兰激进主义，但很多巴基斯坦人表示，阻碍年轻女性受教育的这些因素，在大约30年前这个激进组织成气候之前就存在了。
“Unfortunately in the rural areas, many rich landowners want to keep the girls illiterate,” says Allah Dita Anjum, a rights campaigner whose territory includes Mr Mayo’s and Mr Ramzan’s villages.
维权活动人士Allah Dita Anjum表示：“不幸的是，在农村地区，很多富有的土地所有者不希望让女孩读书。”他所在的地区包括了梅奥和Haji Mohammad Ramzan所在的村子。
“If the girls get educated, then there is a greater chance they will educate their kids and you can see a coming generation of Pakistanis demanding their rights.”
“如果女孩接受教育，她们教育子女的几率就会更大，你可以想象，未来一代巴基斯坦人会要求自己的权利。”
Walking through Bagh Shah village, Mr Anjum asked Sajida Bibi – an 11-year-old girl who spent three years at school before being ordered by her father to stay at home – to read the word on an empty plastic packet of agricultural pesticide on the footpath. In halting English she spelt out L-O-R-D, but fails to identify the word or grasp its possible meanings.
穿过巴沙尔村，Allah Dita Anjum在路边请11岁的女童Sajida Bibi读出一个装过农用杀虫剂的空塑料袋上的字。这个女孩曾经读过3年书，而后被她的父亲勒令呆在家里。她用结结巴巴的英语拼出“l-o-r-d”这几个字母，但认不出这个词，也猜不出可能的意思。
“It’s the big lords who dominate our country and our society who are dominating our lives,” says Mr Anjum. “No one among the elite wants to oversee progressive change in Pakistan. Everyone just wants to preserve the status quo.”
“主宰我们国家和社会的是那些大地主，他们在主宰我们的生活，”Allah Dita Anjum表示，“精英们都不想在巴基斯坦推行进步的改革。大家都只希望保持现状。”
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