Jaranwala, Pakistan – Rina Javed Bhatti sat on a narrow street among a group of 20-25 worshippers, many of them sobbing profusely, while Pastor Javed Bhatti addressed his sermon in a Christian colony in northern Pakistan.
“We thank God almighty for protecting us, for taking care of us, and it is he who will help us get back on our feet,” the pastor said on Sunday, as some in the attendance, mostly women, broke into chants of “Hallelujah” with tears and sweat rolling down their faces in the hot and humid summer weather.
Sunday was the first mass since Christian homes and places of worship in Jaranwala city located in Punjab province were attacked on August 16 by a Muslim mob over claims of blasphemy.
Rows of houses lining the narrow street bore witness to Thursday’s arson attack, with charred walls of houses, burned motorbikes, damaged furniture and blackened household items strewn around. Saint John’s Catholic Church on the next street lay in ruins.
Rina, 31, and her family, like most in the area, fled before the mob went on a rampage, torching homes and churches and, in many cases, taking away household valuables.
“We built our home brick by brick, but when we returned, we found ashes. The attackers burned and looted innocent people’s homes,” she told Al Jazeera.
Residents and officials told Al Jazeera that the violence began after tattered pages of the Quran and some pages with remarks insulting Islam scrawled on them were found roughly 100 metres from Rina’s home. The writer of this alleged blasphemous act was allegedly identified by his name, photo and phone number on one of the papers
Pastor Javed recalls that it was close to 6am on August 16 when he heard a commotion in the street. As he stepped out he saw people standing outside his neighbour’s house to confront the suspect, who has denied desecrating the Quran.
The 41-year-old pastor says that he tried to reason with Muslims who lived in the neighbourhood, asking why somebody would reveal his identity after committing such a “heinous crime”.
“We have a neighbourhood peace committee and the Muslims said they will initiate a dialogue involving a cleric of a local mosque as well, but the news had already started spreading on social media like wildfire,” he told Al Jazeera, while sitting on a charpoy (cot) outside his burned house.
An announcement from a local mosque to protest and attack fuelled the anger, he says.
Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan, with people accused of insulting Islam in the past lynched or handed harsh punishments including the death penalty.
In 2021, a Sri Lankan factory manager was lynched in Sialkot city, about 200km north of Jaranwala, on accusations of blasphemy. The claim later turned out to be false.
In another case, more than 100 houses belonging to the Christian community were destroyed by a mob in the eastern city of Lahore over blasphemy allegations in 2013. A court in 2020 acquitted a Christian man who was accused of that crime.
Rights groups say that such violence is often aggravated due to unverified claims, in most cases due to personal enmity.
Pastor Javed says the allegations were his cue to start warning local Christian community leaders to leave their homes immediately for safer places. He and more than 100 families living in the Christian colony had to escape Jaranwala, situated roughly 115km (71 miles) northwest of Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab.
Members of the community took shelter in factories, open fields and other nearby villages as mobs attacked their homes.
“We have been living in this neighbourhood for more than five decades and I can tell you that never once were we discriminated against on the basis of religion, let alone face such a grave accusation of blasphemy,” the pastor says.
“But I am aware of history. I know what havoc such allegations can cause.”
Sahar Maiskeem, who had fled with eight members of her family, returned two days later – the day of her planned wedding – to see her house destroyed.
“I had collected my own dowry with my own money, which I earned over three years by sewing clothes. Everything we had was either stolen or burnt. I don’t have anything left, not even my engagement ring,” she told Al Jazeera.
Faisal Afzal, a Muslim who lives in the same neighbourhood, said in his lifetime he had never heard of any rift or any controversy with his Christian neighbours.
“Those who caused this were not from our area. They do not understand the lasting damage that we have to deal with,” the 35-year-old told Al Jazeera.
Afzal said the violence eroded the trust between the two communities.
Muhammed Riaz, a police official in the area, says that once authorities were informed of the unfolding situation on August 16, they called a meeting between Christian and Muslim leaders at about 8am to defuse the situation.
The leaders from both communities backed police efforts to calm the situation, Riaz said. But a crowd of more than 500 Muslims gathered near the Christian colony outnumbered the police, he added.
“The crowd consisted mostly of young men, teenagers, wielding batons, sticks. And by 9 or 10am, as passions were running high, the mob attacked the churches and homes of Christians,” the police official said.
The crowd comprised residents and people from nearby villages as well as some from religious parties, the police said.
Videos that emerged of the violence on social media showed dozens of young men descending upon the Salvation Army Church near the Christian colony, a red-coloured structure built before the country’s independence in 1947.
The men were chanting slogans that are associated with Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a far-right party. In multiple videos, they can be seen clambering up the roof of the church, destroying the cross and setting the building on fire.
Another video shows hundreds of men pouring into the main street of the Christian colony and attacking and torching St John’s Catholic Church as well as neighbouring houses – as police stood by.
A party flag of the TLP was also found lying near the altar of the Full Gospel Assemblies church, one of 21 destroyed churches that Al Jazeera visited. The party, however, has denied its involvement in the attacks and said it was at the forefront of efforts to alleviate tensions.
The anti-Christian attacks drew widespread condemnation within Pakistan, prompting the caretaker government to assure swift action against the perpetrators.
Authorities have so far arrested more than 150 people in connection with the vandalism. Police also arrested two brothers – Rocky and Raja – who are accused of the blasphemy. Raja’s name was reportedly scrawled on the pages of the desecrated Quran.
The provincial government has also announced compensation of two million rupees ($24,000) for those who lost their homes, while also promising to rebuild all of the damaged churches.
According to an estimate by the Punjab province, close to 100 homes and at least 22 churches, over a radius of eight kilometres, were either completely or partially destroyed, causing damage worth nearly 70 million rupees ($233,000).
The police say they did their best to handle the situation and prevent deaths.
“I know that loss of property is huge, but at least it can still be replaced, repaired. We wanted to ensure that people’s lives remain out of danger,” Usman Akram Gondal, a senior police official, told Al Jazeera.
But activists and researchers have accused the authorities of acting too slowly to stop rumours from spreading on social media.
According to Bytes for All, an Islamabad-based research organisation, Facebook and Twitter were primarily used to “fuel the violence” after the blasphemy accusations emerged, and they subsequently spread through other platforms including TikTok and YouTube.
“Our monitoring shows around a million people were reached through Twitter and Facebook posts about the incident,” Shahzad Ahmad, country director for Bytes for All, told Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, back in the Christian colony, Jan Masih says he does not know if he will ever be able to rebuild his house.
“Are we going to feed our children, or save money to rebuild it again?” Masih, who works as a sanitation worker, said.
But for the 39-year-old, the incident has also damaged the trust he shared with his Muslim neighbours.
“Our colony was a model of peace and unity. But this one incident has sent us back centuries. I don’t feel any safety or security here any more,” he said
The lives of Kobra, Najia, Madina, Sonya and Zahra looked as though they were just getting started two years ago. When the Taliban captured the Afghan capital of Kabul, they were about to finish school, working towards a university degree or beginning a career. Suddenly, though, their lives changed dramatically.
The five Afghan women between the ages of 14 and 29 all belong to less privileged layers of society and were the beneficiaries of the relatively liberal laws and new educational opportunities that existed in the republic. But all that came to an end with the Taliban victory.
Through email and video interviews, they spoke with DER SPIEGEL about what has become of their lives in the two years since the country’s new rulers have pushed women out of public life. They speak of the end of their dreams, depression, economic struggle, disappointment with the West and their fury with the Taliban. And they also write about what the West and the security forces of the toppled republic were unable to provide, but the Taliban can: Security
Kobra, 29, was a teacher at a private school in Kabul. She has been unemployed for almost two years. She was the family’s only breadwinner. The father of the family left her mother early on. They are from the central Afghanistan province of Bamyan.
Najia, 14, former high school student. Currently lives with her mother and sister, Kobra, in the home of an uncle in Kabul.
Madina, 23, was pursuing a degree in economics in Kabul until the Taliban closed universities to women last December. Today, she is unemployed and lives with seven siblings in the capital.
Sonya, 23, studied engineering in Harat. She was forced to leave the university in her fourth year, shortly before completing her studies. Currently, Sonya is doing an internship with a construction company. She lives with her parents in a small rental house.
Zahra, 24, is unemployed. She studied literature in the eastern province of Khost and taught at a private school in the capital. A few days ago, she found a job with an aid organization in Kabul. Her dream is to become an author
Kobra
You, who call yourself students of religion, Taliban – are you aware that the Islam revelations begin with "Read!”? This applies to both men and women. You have transformed our faith into an anti-religion!
The Prophet calls on us to strive for knowledge, and He doesn’t differentiate between the sexes, but you prohibit us from learning. If the education of girls were forbidden in Islam, then why does it exist in every single other Muslim country?
Why have you closed higher level schools to girls? Why have you taken our voices? Why have you robbed us of the freedom to go outside? What crime is it to express one’s thoughts? But you don’t want us to speak about our oppression!
The world was made for all humans. God gave us the ability to discover nature, use our voice, to see, to travel. Why have you taken away our right to work? You have brought poverty and death into our homes. You yourself are in opposition to God. You are keeping us in prison. And you claim to be the real Muslims?
Madina
There are seven of us in the house. My brother used to work as an IT specialist at a tech company, and my sister was a teacher. Together, we earned $400 per month and we were doing well. After the fall of the republic, my brother and sister both lost their jobs. Now, my older sister teaches online. A foreign aid organization pays her $200 per month. That’s what we live on.
She's my great role model. I want to become a courageous woman like her. Before the Taliban arrived, she fulfilled as many of our wishes as she could with her salary. She bought us clothes for religious festivals or parties. I want to do the same. But the Taliban have bound our hands and feet. My head hurts. What will become of us? I just want to curl up alone in a corner and cry.
Sonya
A few years before the Taliban toppled the republic, I had an experience that completely changed my life. I was washing the dishes in the kitchen when a TV moderator started interviewing a woman who had earned her diploma at Mehri Heravi High School in Herat and then studied construction engineering at Herat University. I looked up in surprise. The woman was married and had two children, and she was presented as a successful construction engineer. She had achieved everything, she had made the impossible possible! And as she talked about all the difficulties she had overcome, I felt a positive energy flowing through me. "You see how the strength and the ambition of an Afghan woman can break through all the walls of limitations?" I called out in excitement to my brother. On that day, I made my decision. Like this woman, I wanted to study engineering. I enrolled; I had a single goal. I loved what I was doing and made it all the way to my fourth year at university. I wanted to go on to study physics, get to know new countries and travel to space. But then, the Taliban arrived and closed the universities to us women. I tried to get around the ban and enrolled in a drawing course. But it was cancelled. I tried again, I wanted to learn English. But there are no longer any English courses for women in Herat.
Why do the Taliban stand in the way of women’s advancement and their presence in society? It’s because they are afraid that women’s knowledge will limit their power.
Kobra
Qari Hamdallah, yes, I mean you. The one who, every time I leave the house, is standing at the intersection in front of the bus stop and examining the women with those piercing eyes to see if they are obeying. You yell at the drivers if they transport men and women in the same cars. You shove your guard-dog eyes through the car window to examine our clothing. Your gaze feels like a bucket of cold water over my head. I have no male escort, but I leave the house anyway.
Your arrival in Kabul transformed my dreams into nightmares.
Do you know how much effort it took to get to where I was? I studied day and night for the entrance exams for the public university in my favorite city Kabul. My mother is illiterate. We lived in Bamyan and moved to the capital. I was able to earn enough money for the entire family. We weren’t a burden on anyone. Later, as a teacher in a private school, I taught both boys and girls from the seventh to the 12th grade. My sister went to a school for English and painting. I fulfilled my mother’s wishes. We lived in a small house. We were happy.
Since my childhood, you have forced your way into my life with your suicide attacks, or when you would set fire to our schools and mosques. I am a Shiite Muslim. Even as a child, I knew that the Sunni Taliban were the enemies of women and girls. When I used to travel from Kabul to Bamyan, I would cross Shahr Square, which was so frequently the target of your atrocities. Sometimes, the street was still bloody after yet another one of your attacks.
Qari Hamdallah, you who are standing everyday at the bus stop at the intersection: Do you actually know what you have inflicted upon me?
With your arrival, our lives darkened. On the day you came, I ran home from the school, and everything changed. Girls were no longer allowed to learn, I lost my job. You slammed shut the doors of my life. Now, I sit at home, waiting for my uncle to give me a bit of money. We have sold my mother’s jewelry because we had no more bread to eat. I hate asking other people for money.
In the years of the republic, there was less security. But it was still the best time of our lives. Because we were free.
Madina
On the order of the supreme leader of the Islamic Emirate, the beauty salons in Kabul and the provinces were closed down. The last hairdresser we went to was the one at Makroyan Market back in April. I wanted to get my hair done for Eid al-Fitr, the fast-breaking festival. All of the women there had bitter stories to tell – about the unemployment of their husbands, children and brothers. My mother, too, lamented the fact that my father and brother were jobless.
The owner of the salon was concerned. She was the breadwinner for her family. Her husband had died of cancer several years previously and she has two sons and four daughters. "How can feed my children and pay our high rent if the Taliban decide to close down the salons in Kabul?” she wanted to know. They had already been banned in some of the provinces. Now, the capital has also met the same fate.
Being beautiful is not a sin! God is beautiful and God loves beauty. Allah tells us to wear clean, orderly and beautiful clothes for Him, and to be beautiful for Him. Being beautiful does not mean that women are bad or tainted.
When women are sad, they can improve their spirits by putting on makeup. Looking nice is not a crime. Working in salons were among the last jobs available to women.
Sonya
What would it look like if God had created everything without color? Would you still want to see? What would then be the difference between the forest and the desert? Between a blue sky and a cloudy one?
With the closing of the beauty salons and the ban on makeup, the Taliban robbed Afghan women of color. Beauty gives us composure. Some even try to hide their spiritual wounds with makeup. With the ban, the Taliban erased color from women’s faces and washed away the fragrance that surrounded them. The Taliban make women feel like they are dead. But we are still alive.
The Taliban see us women as the source of sin and corruption. If they succumb to lust, it is a sin that in their eyes stems from the freedom and beauty of women. If women were allowed to walk around freely, then the Taliban, who see themselves as the true Muslims, might commit sins because they feel attracted to these women. Isn’t it interesting that those who clearly aren’t able to control their own desires and moods claim that they are able to rule an entire country?
Madina
Freedom also had a price. When we used to walk into the center of Kabul – to Maryam High School, Pamir Cinema or to shop at the Makroyan Market – we would often encounter men with poor manners. They had nothing better to do than harass us. In crowded buses, they would touch our bodies. They would say obscene things, stick their telephone numbers in the folds of our robes or let their notes fall to our feet for us to pick up. Now that the Taliban are here, that no longer happens. Men on the streets now behave themselves. Because it’s not just the women who are afraid of the Taliban, the men fear them too.
I am grateful to the Taliban for some things. There are now seats for women on the bus. And they have regulated food prices. Some things had grown so expensive that we were only able to eat rice and beans for months on end. Now, we can buy meat every two or three weeks. There, they have done well. But why don’t they use their power for the benefit of everybody?
Najia
It was the 10th day of the month of Muharram. After I had breakfasted and cleaned the house, my mother, my sister Kobra and I went to the mosque. Armed Taliban police were there to secure the mosque. For as long as I can remember, we Hazara, as Shiite Muslims, have been the target of the deadliest Taliban attacks. How strange, I thought: Only two years ago, these same Taliban killed thousands of innocent Shiites with their attacks on schools and mosques. And now they have come to protect us?
How can we trust them? In the eyes of the Taliban, we are nothing but infidels. Worthless, without rights. The world should know that us girls start every day here with desperation. There is nobody we can tell about our pain, and nobody who wants to hear it.
Kobra
Families where there is no man are being denied their existence by your laws. We are one such family. How are we supposed to earn our bread? Show me the religion where it is said that people should live in poverty and sell their organs and their children to feed themselves? All that is happening here in your empire.
Madina
After the collapse of the republic, classes continued at the university for a few weeks. At first, the Taliban claimed that classes would continue. They set up divides between the male and female students and there were also so-called culture classes. The instructor would ask about surahs from the Koran and threatened that those who couldn’t recite them by heart would be thrown out of the second story window. I trembled. Fear became my constant companion.
Taking away our right to education and work is like forbidding us from eating and breathing. It kills the human soul and destroys society. It’s like cutting through the roots of civilization.
Zahra
Where are you today who spent all those years living with us here? You diplomats and politicians, as you were called by the powers of the world, the so-called international community? You are silent, as if Afghanistan was no longer part of the world and there were no longer any humans here.
I am furious at you international media, you journalists, who are now silent. You limited your coverage to the initial days after the Taliban takeover, and now – now that we are under much greater strain – you have left us alone.
I am furious at you Taliban, who are inflicting such damage on your country. At you who lack even a shred of humanity. I don’t know where you learned your ruthless recipes, which cannot be found in any book.
I am furious at you, the man who calls himself our father, Ashraf Ghani, the president who left the Afghans behind with no protection. It is now easy for the Taliban to oppress the people in this forgotten country, to steal the girls and force them into marriage. And we, those who remain here, continue to water the flowers of our hope so they do not wilt.
Madina
When the Taliban hear music coming from our yard, they storm the party, beat up the DJ and claim that music is haram, forbidden. Female athletes are no longer allowed to take part in competitions. Women and girls may no longer participate in art exhibits. When we demonstrated for our rights, they met us with tear gas, clubs and water cannons. I don’t know which is greater: My hatred for the Taliban, because they took all that away from us, or my anger at the imagination with which they did it.
Sonya
Woman can do many different things at the same time. They can be a good mother, a good wife, a good sister and be an engineer, politician or astronaut at the same time, all those things that men are able to do. But the Taliban don’t want to share power with the other half of society. They know: An increase of power for women means a decrease of their own. That's the real reason they define women as creatures that have no needs of their own.
They only want women around to serve their pleasure and take care of other needs. Now, though, they are unexpectedly encountering women in Afghan cities who are strong, educated and able. For the Taliban, that is unacceptable.
Some men here say that the real crime the Americans committed here was that of instilling nonsense in the minds of women. And that they are no longer willing to accept the intended fate of an Afghan woman.
The Taliban should know: If they erect walls on the path to our goals, we will become ladders. If they burn the walls, we will become water. If they increase the pressure, we will grow stronger.
The fact that I am still writing proves: I hope, I laugh and I am still moving. And I won’t stop until I get what I want
Taliban's religious police reportedly burned a number of musical instruments in the western province of Herat, according to a Sunday report by the state-run news agency Bakhtar.
Sheikh Aziz al-Rahman al-Muhajir, the provincial head of the Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, said music led to "misguidance of the youth and the destruction of society," according to the report.
People could be corrupted, according to the official. The Taliban banned nonreligious music the last time it ruled the country in the 1990s.
Pictures show officials gathered around a fire with musical instruments, including guitars, harmoniums and speakers. A pile of musical instruments burn as the Taliban imposes new restrictions on music
Afghanistan has a strong musical tradition, influenced by Iranian and Indian classical music.
It also has a thriving pop music scene, adding electronic instruments and dance beats to more traditional rhythms.
Both flourished in the past 20 years before the Taliban stormed to power in 2021.
But the Taliban has imposed harsh measures since seizing control of Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO forces withdrew.
Students and teachers of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, which was once famous for its inclusiveness, have not returned to classes since the Taliban takeover. Many musicians have also fled the country.
Taliban's crackdown on women's rights
The Taliban promised a more moderate rule than that of their previous time in power in the 1990s. They had promised to allow for women's and minority rights. But instead, they reintroduced harsh measures in line with their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.
They have carried out public executions, banned education for girls beyond the sixth grade and also banned women from most forms of employment.
Earlier this week, the Taliban announced that all beauty salons ought to be closed because they offered services forbidden by Islam and caused economic hardship for the families of grooms during wedding festivities.
Until last year it was not really possible for most unmarried women to become mothers in China - practically speaking. But a social change is under way and it is driving shifts in policy too.
In her flat on the outskirts of Shanghai, Zhang Meili rocks her baby back and forth. As he gurgles away happily, she tells him that she's going to head out soon to earn money for him.
After his mother goes to work, two-month-old Heng Heng will be looked after by his grandmother - who recently moved to China's largest city to help her daughter raise her child.
That there is no father in Heng Heng's life would be frowned upon by many in China, especially in more conservative rural and regional areas. The belief that a child should not be brought into this world without a mother and a father is still widely held here.
In Zhang Meili's case, she says she was lucky to have moved to Shanghai to run a business because being a single mother in this mega-city is much more accepted.
"I'm grateful for the tolerance of Shanghai," she says. "I'm from rural Henan, an area which would have a lot of discrimination against me as a single mother."
She became a single mum after her boyfriend's family rejected his choice of bride. They considered her position in society to be too modest.
So he broke up with her - even though she was pregnant with his child.
I ask her mother, Mrs Zhao, how she felt when she heard the news that her daughter, who is 25, would keep the baby.
"My feelings? I was heartbroken," she says. "It's very hard to raise a kid on your own. And, in our hometown, there would be criticism from neighbours."
Have her feelings changed now that she's a grandmother?
"Now I see him, I'm really happy," she says with a huge smile on her face.
Zhang Meili has options that many unmarried women don't have because she runs her own small business.
This gives her more independence and control over her life.
Though the little massage shop she runs is still struggling post-Covid, she doesn't need to clear leave with an employer or battle for social acceptance in a workplace because she has given birth to a son who will be raised without his dad.
Of course, it has not been easy for Zhang Meili to keep her business afloat during such a rocky time economically, with the added challenges of giving birth, plus knowing that - while attitudes are changing - there are still those who will look down on her.
She says that none of her friends backed her decision to keep her child. They thought it would harm her chances of eventually finding a husband, and that it wasn't right for the child to grow up without a father.
"When I was pregnant, I went to the hospital alone," she says. "At the time, my shop was struggling to survive and, when I looked around, I did envy the women who went there with their husbands.
"But I chose to become a single mum. I chose to have him, and I needed to get over this."
Yet it was not only people's beliefs which made it very hard to become a single parent.
Before 2016, the government effectively prohibited this from happening by stopping officials from issuing birth approval certificates, without seeing proof of marriage for the father and mother.
Another problem had been the requirement for both parents' ID details to be listed in order for a child to get a hukou - the identity document which all Chinese citizens need to, for example, enrol in school.
When I first came to China two decades ago, I recall unmarried women telling me that they would have no choice but to have an abortion if they became pregnant accidentally because a child could not survive in this country without all the required paperwork.
Even after these rules changed, it remained virtually impossible for most unmarried women to give birth until last year because they could not get access to the health insurance needed to pay for the hospital, or to paid maternity leave.
These two things have now supposedly changed but, in practice, an employer must apply on behalf of a staff member for the benefits to kick in - and some companies are still refusing to do it.
A lawyer working on cases in this field told us she had a client whose boss at a large franchise would not facilitate her getting access to paid maternity leave. Only after she sued the company did they agree to do it.
"It really depends on the openness of the company and the awareness of employers regarding the rights of their staff," the lawyer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "However local policies are actually vague and sometimes companies are operating in a grey zone here."
Some bosses don't understand that the regulations have changed, the lawyer added.
Others are not keeping their knowledge up to date because they simply don't want to. They may consider single parenting to be wrong.
Prof Yang Juhua from Beijing's Minzu University says that, under Chinese law, all mothers and their children should enjoy the same rights regardless of marital status.
"But, in terms of implementation, it is not smooth," she says. "Why? Because many people still can't understand, and are not tolerant towards, single mothers."
Prof Yang, an expert in demography, says the rules were set up without single mothers in mind.
"China's regulations are designed for married couples," she adds. "Marriage is the pre-condition. Single parents are still a new thing here and represent a way of thinking which is very different to our traditional ethical norms".
One factor driving change for policymakers has been the country's ageing population.
After decades of the one-child policy, the government would now like young couples to have more babies, but many are not answering the call, for financial reasons. They think they don't have sufficient funds to raise multiple children.
Under these circumstances, if single women want to have children, those in positions of authority have decided they should be encouraged to.
Visiting a cavernous exhibition centre in the south-eastern city of Hangzhou, we meet Peng Qingqing, among the toys, nappies and mountains of milk formula at a commercial fair focusing on baby products.
Peng Qingqing, who runs an online sales platform, is herself heavily pregnant and unmarried, and, like Zhang Meili, she says that being a businesswoman has made this easier.
"My mum always told me that women should be more independent, confident, and strong," she tells us. "I don't want to marry into another family just because of a child".
The 30-year-old says the time wasn't right for marriage when she accidentally became pregnant with her much younger boyfriend, but that she wanted to keep her baby.
She says that the shifting status of women in China, especially in terms of their financial independence, has meant that choices can now be made which were not possible just a few years ago.
"Traditionally women relied on men and the family for support. As we earn more, men and women become more equal. Women can even employ people to help them," she says.
But the vast majority of single women in China are on much lower incomes and remain beholden to the system as it is to support them.
The lawyer who's been working on cases relating to women's workplace rights explains that pay during maternity leave is linked to salary. "For grassroots single mothers their incomes are low," she says. "Without proper, paid, maternity leave they could not survive. It's a very practical issue.
"These days, the government is encouraging families to have more babies. Some provinces even have financial rewards. But, for single mothers, such support is not available. It's highly discriminatory."
Women who give birth outside of marriage can also face other forms of discrimination, she says.
For those in the public service, they may not be able to get political clearance from the Communist Party (certifying that someone is a decent, loyal citizen). The absence of such official approval can mean missing out on promotions or even not getting a government job in the first place.
But Prof Yang says she thinks that, as society becomes more tolerant towards unmarried mothers, such discrimination will gradually disappear.
If the national government, in the future, requires local officials to more strictly enforce regulations allowing single women to become parents this might also help, she says.
As for Zhang Meili, she says this should be a choice for the women themselves.
I ask her what advice she would give others who find themselves in the same situation as her and she replies: "It depends on their personal situation but, if they love kids, they should have them.
"Don't lose a child because of other people's voices or because of questions coming at you from the outside."