[1][2] She attended the University of the Punjab in the 1960s, from where she received her bachelor's degree in law, becoming one of the first Pakistani women to do so.

[1][3] One of her daughters is Maliha Zia Lari, also a lawyer and human rights activist.

[3] Zia built a reputation for fighting laws that were discriminatory against women and religious minorities.

[1][3] Zia served on a commission examining the status of women in Pakistan, appointed by the government,[7] and was a coauthor of a report that it authored in 1997.

[1] When the Pakistani National Assembly approved Sharia law in 1998 through the Fifteenth constitutional amendment, Zia was forced to resign her positions on several government bodies.