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Good morning. When I first heard about the children’s cartoon Burka Avenger I knew I would be a fan. It’s the creation of Haroon Rashid, pop star and television personality who has launched the series in Islamabad. His heroine is called Jiya and her mission is to fight ignorance with books, pens and advanced acrobatics. She has started a school which is open to girls and by day she teaches, modest and demure in her neat pink dress. By night she morphs into the Burka Avenger, flying through the air like superman and using martial arts to fight her foes, especially the villainous Bab Bandooq, who conspires to close her school, and the corrupt politician Vadero Pajero. Although the cartoon works as a fantasy adventure series, it is also a satire on the controversy in Pakistan about girls’ education, an issue we all become involved in when Malila Yousafzai was shot.

The cartoon has been criticised by supporters of women’s rights. Some are horrified that the all-covering burka, sign of the invisibility of women, should be the source of the heroine’s mystique. Doesn’t it just reinforce a negative message?..