About a dozen girls, aged 8 to 17, have gone to the Pak Shaheen Boxing Club after school to practice their jabs, hooks and upper cuts. Pakistani women have been training as boxers in small numbers and competed in the South Asian Games last year, according to Younis Qambrani, the coach who founded the club in 1992 in the Karachi neighbourhood of Lyari, a place better known for internecine gang warfare than for breaking glass ceilings.
Pakistan: First Women's Boxing Camp
Some Pakistani parents send their daughters to train in boxing -- an exotic hobby in this conservative country -- because it is not safe on the streets.
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Tabia (R), 12, fights against Aamna, 11, during the Sindh Junior Sports Association Boxing Tournament in Karachi.
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Girl trainees pose for a group photograph with their coach Yunus Qambrani and assistant coach Nadir at the boxing camp in Karachi.