From the age of 9, Bhutto was groomed by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, for political office in Pakistan. He introduced her to leading politicians of the day and made sure she was well educated.

"I was a very shy girl who led an insulated life, it was only when I came to Oxford and to Harvard before that, that suddenly I saw the power of people. I didn't know such a power existed, I saw people criticising their own president, you couldn't do that in Pakistan, you'd be thrown in prison. I saw the press take on the government. I was determined to go back home and to give to my people the freedoms and the choices- the individual dignity which I saw my college mates and everyone else in the West have...That early educational influence has profoundly affected my outlook on life."

At Harvard University in the USA, aged only 16, Bhutto found herself taking part in protest marches against the Vietnam War. In 1973 when she went on to Oxford University to study, her father became Prime Minister of Pakistan. Although it seemed she had been groomed for politics, it was not her first choice of career.

"My father was the Prime Minister of Pakistan, my grandfather had been in politics too, however my own inclination was for a job other than politics. I wanted to be a diplomat, perhaps do some journalism, certainly not politics. But when my father was imprisoned, then assassinated, I had no other choice but to continue in the work that he had started because so many of his followers wanted me to do so."