 Noreen was the first woman in Pakistan to be sentenced to death for blasphemy and would have been the first person in Pakistan to be executed for blasphemy under the current law.Aasiya Noreen was born and raised in Ittan Wali, a small, rural village in the Sheikhupura District of Punjab, Pakistan, thirty miles outside of Lahore.Poor Christians in the district, and elsewhere in Pakistan, often have lower-class occupations such as cleaning and sweeping.