Here's an excerpt of a recent Khatmandu speech by Pak social scientist Arif Hasan:

.. ...In my city, Karachi, anyone my age will similarly tell you how wonderful Karachi used to be...the calm that we enjoyed was really like the peace of the dead. It was a kind of peace made possible by the feudal system.
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I asked an elder from the taluka whom I had met in 1983, now much older, “Sahib, did you have honour killings before?”

He said, “Yes, we used to have one in perhaps ten years. It was a rare occurrence, and we would discuss one for ten years until another happened.”

“Then why it is happening now with such regularity?”

He said, “Now, everyone has become shameless, without honour, so honour killings are taking place.”

I asked, “Why is there no honour today?”

He responded, “The young people, they’ve gone to the city, and they’ve done all the wrong things. The girls have learned how to read and write, they’ve gone to school, some of them have gone to university as well. They have no morals left, so this is bound to happen.”

“You mean this is going to continue like this forever?”

“No, no, it will stop!”

“How and when will it stop?”

His reply was educative: “The honour killings will stop when everyone becomes shameless, then it will end.” Then he added, “But I hope that I die before that day.”

He was a man of the old, feudal rural culture, with its own pattern of behaviour and way of thinking. He was part of it, and it was dying, so he wished to die with it.

In 1992, the applications for court marriages in Karachi amounted to about 10 or 15, mainly applications from couples who were seeking the protection of the court for wedlock without familial consent. By 2006, we were seeing more than 250 applications for court marriages per day in Karachi. Significantly, more than half of the couples seeking court recognition of their betrothal came from rural areas of Sindh. This is yet another indication of how the entire feudal system and its values are in rapid collapse.

This collapse is also heralded by the advances in women’s education. According to 2006 figures, fully 72 percent of the University of Karachi student body is today female. Among medical students, 87 percent are women, and the figure for architecture and planning is as high as 92 percent. In fact, our vice chancellor was so concerned that he suggested a quota for men. I used to teach a class with one boy and 15 girls. That has changed a little now as we have tried to even it out. But the reason is simply that women do better on the entrance tests. There’s no other reason for it.

In 1971, I started working in low-income settlements in Karachi, and a decade later I joined the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP). The settlements that we worked in at that time were primarily working-class, and when we went over we were met by older men who were mostly illiterate. They spoke to us in very formal, feudal language – janaab, huzoor, sahib, miyan, “We are all your children and need your protection,” and all that. At that time, in the 1980s, the women hardly worked. Things are entirely different when you go to the OPP today; it’s not what you would call a shanty settlement. It’s mostly the younger generation who will meet you, and they will address you as ‘uncle’ rather than ‘sahib’. The people you meet are bank managers, school teachers, professionals working in the service sector of Karachi.
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... The recent shooting of Malala Yusufzhai has shown what Pakistani society really feels and how it thinks on issues. For the first time the Pakistani establishment – the army as well as the three major political parties – have all condemned the Taliban for the shooting. The people have spoken in the huge rallies, in Karachi and elsewhere. ...

http://himalmag.com/component/content/article/5126-the-eclipse-of-f...

Here's an AFP story about love online in Pakistani town of Muzaffargarh:

MUZAFFARABAD: Sania was just a schoolgirl when she logged onto an Internet chat room and met a young college student called Mohammad. They fell in love and decided to get married.

Internet dating in the West is now so common that it is no longer considered an act of shameful desperation but an acceptable way for busy professionals to discover a like-minded partner.

But for Sania, the 22-year-old daughter of a conservative truck driver in Pakistan, online romance and her subsequent marriage has meant repeated beatings and death threats at the hands of her relatives.

“No one gets married outside our community. It is our tradition,” Sania told AFP. She is from the garrison city of Rawalpindi and Mohammad comes from Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

At first she and Mohammad chatted online. Then they both bought mobiles to continue their relationship by telephone. For several years they asked their parents for permission to marry, but were refused.

So Sania decided to escape.

She packed a bag and sneaked out while her brother was at school, her mother sleeping and her father out at work. She took the bus straight to Muzaffarabad.

“I spent the four-hour journey in fear. I kept thinking that if my family caught me, they’d kill me,” she told AFP.

In Muzaffarabad, Mohammad met her off the bus and they got married immediately. But while his family quickly accepted Sania, nearly two years later the couple still live in fear of her relatives.

Twice they have dragged her back to Rawalpindi since her marriage and have demanded repeatedly that she break off relations with Mohammad.

“Last time they took me back three months ago and put lot of pressure on me to break off this relationship. I got in contact with my husband and asked him to fetch me. I escaped from the house at midnight and we managed to flee,” she said.

Now Sania and her 24-year-old husband have moved to a new one-room house in a slum, changed their phone number and dare not venture out of the city.

“They say they will kill us whenever they find us,” Sania says.

Women in Pakistan who marry against the wishes of their parents are ostracised or even killed by male relatives for supposedly bringing dishonour on the family.

But online relationships are a new phenomenon.

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Mohammad Zaman, professor of sociology at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, who has written a book about marriage, says arranged unions that have dominated for centuries are on the wane.

“Internet marriage is a new trend emerging in Pakistan. Technological advancement has entered into our homes and traditional taboos are slowly vanishing in educated and affluent families,” Zaman told AFP.

Online, they can share personal information and swap photographs — things that would be restricted or prohibited in the traditional selection of partners.

The Internet is changing mindsets, giving young people freedom and privacy, and a forum to discuss matters frowned upon by Pakistan’s traditional, conservative society.

“There is a kind of emancipation in society and young people want their say in the selection of their future partner,” Zaman said, although he conceded that parents find it easier to accept a son’s choice than that of a daughter.

Tahir, a Pakistani peace activist, knows only too well how the freedom of the Internet can collide with the restrictions of everyday life — not only conservative sensibilities but politics and war.

The 26-year-old fell for university student Nazia on Facebook and Skype.

All fine and good, except that Nazia lives on the other side of one of the most heavily militarised borders in the world — that which divides the Himalayan region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

--

http://dawn.com/2012/12/16/love-online-challenges-pakistan-taboos/

Here's Reuters on rising divorce rate in Pakistan:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani women are slowly turning to divorce to escape abusive and loveless marriages, once taboo and still a dangerous option in this strict Muslim nation even as more women become empowered by rising employment and awareness of their rights.

But the number of women with the courage to seek divorce remains small in the face of Pakistan's powerful religious right and growing Islamic conservatism, and in a male-dominated nation where few champion women's rights.

Women are often killed while pursuing divorces, with some shot on the way home from court or in front of their lawyers.

In the capital Islamabad, home to 1.7 million people, 557 couples divorced in 2011, up from 208 in 2002, the Islamabad Arbitration Council said. The Pakistani government does not track a national divorce rate.

"If you are earning, the only thing you need from the guy is love and affection. If the guy is not even providing that, then you leave him," said 26-year-old divorcee Rabia, a reporter who left a loveless arranged marriage to a cheating husband.

Despite their small numbers, Rabia and other women like her are seen as a rising threat from Pakistan's conservative forces.

"The women have been given so-called freedom and liberty, which causes danger to themselves," Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan told Reuters.

There were at least 1,636 "honor killings" last year, said Pakistani rights group The Aurat Foundation. The mere perception that a woman has behaved in a way that "dishonors" her family is sufficient to trigger an attack.

Pashtun singer Ghazala Javed became a statistic in June. A famous beauty, she married after fleeing Taliban threats. Then she discovered her new husband already had a wife. When she asked for a divorce, she and her father were shot dead.

FINANCIAL EMPOWERMENT

While women divorcing their husbands is widespread in the West, growing markedly in the 20th century in many developed nations, it is a relatively new phenomenon in Pakistan.

And while a divorce case in the Muslim family courts must be resolved within six months, civil divorce cases can drag on for years, making it even harder for tens of thousands of women from religious minorities to get a divorce.

In the commercial hub Karachi, lawyer Zeeshan Sharif said he receives several divorce enquiries a week but virtually none a decade ago.

Women seeking a divorce usually come from the upper and middle classes, he said. Lawyers' fees are at least $300, a year's wage for many of Pakistan's 180 million citizens. For poor housewives, hiring a lawyer is impossible.

Most Pakistanis think the higher divorce rate is linked to women's growing financial independence, a 2010 poll by The Gilani Foundation/Gallup Pakistan found.

The number of women with jobs grew from 5.69 million to 12.11 million over the past decade, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics said.

"Women are also making money now and they think if they have empowerment, they do not need to sacrifice as much," said Musfira Jamal, a senior member of the religious party Jamaat-e-Islami. "God does not like divorce ... (but) God has not given any right to any man to beat his wife or torture his family."

In 2012, clerics and a religious party demanded a review of a bill to outlaw domestic violence, saying it risked undermining "family values".

Western culture, not abuse, is why women seek divorces, said Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan.

Yet domestic violence was one of the most common reasons for divorce, said lawyer Aliya Malik. Around 90 percent of Pakistani women experienced domestic violence at least once, a 2011 Thomson Reuters Foundation poll found....

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE90806J20130109

Here's a Harvard Business Review piece on women in Pakistan:

"Pakistan is a highly complex and ambiguous country," Ehsan Malik, Country Manager for Unilever Pakistan, told me. "The media projects Pakistan as conservative, but there is a large segment of society that is liberal and broad minded." (Disclosure: Unilever is a client of mine globally, but not the Pakistan branch particularly.)

"My predecessor at Unilever Pakistan was a woman who went to run L'Oreal Pakistan. My wife runs a business and both our mothers and sisters have always worked, as do many in our families and friends. So for me Unilever's gender balance drive is not something extraordinary." Two of the people on Malik's six-person Management Committee are women, and he sees the possibility that his successor could be female. "There are three senior women who have been listed as high potential so we could have a majority female Management Committee in the foreseeable future."

"We aimed to set an example and become a model on gender balance. Now, virtually all our competitors are doing the same... In Pakistan, despite the bad press, when it comes to gender, employers are progressive."

How do the men react? "There was a debate two or three years back, around a concern that we were favoring women. We made it very clear: between two equal candidates, we said we would pick the woman because there is an imbalance that needs to be corrected." In Pakistan, as in a growing number of countries, women perform better academically. "Medical colleges are 70% women but less than half of them continue working beyond a few years of qualifying, partly because of family reasons but also due to working conditions," notes Malik.

In many companies I work for, some of the greatest openness and action on gender balance is in emerging market operations. I have found managers in Brazil, India or Malaysia more enthusiastic and convinced of the business case than their Western colleagues, in much more challenging contexts. And ready to go to much greater lengths to adapt to women's needs.

Like Pakistan. Unilever Pakistan has achieved its gender balancing targets internally (ahead of most Western countries), which Malik considered "relatively simple," yet by doing things that might appear inconceivable elsewhere. So, for example, to recruit female engineers in its remote factories, Unilever provides security-guard staffed housing for the women next to the facilities, ensuring their safety and reassuring their families. Flexible working from different locations — home, distributor premises, or ad agency offices — is another step that benefits all managers. However, he observed, "some female managers prefer coming to the office — there is a day care center to look after their children, they want to get away from extended families that many in Pakistan live with, [and] they can escape the power cuts that plague large cities."

These seemed like obvious investments to Malik who is now setting his sites on "a much bigger agenda" with gender as a competitive advantage with consumers, and a condition for working with suppliers.

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For the moment, there are 900 women who have gone through the training, and Malik is planning on increasing this to 7,000. "The rural population's bank is usually a couple of villages away. So we are finding that not only do other women come for beauty advice, they also start coming for advice on how to open bank accounts and start a business. And it seems the men are starting to come too, looking for the same guidance."

"Where government fails," concludes Malik, " global companies can fill the void by building concepts that become platforms for change and progress."

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/unilevers_pakistan_country_man.html

Here's a "">Daily Beast piece on girls' education in Pakistan:

Humaira Bachal was just a teenager when she looked around her impoverished Karachi neighborhood at the children roaming the barren streets, and realized that she and her sister were the only ones who were going to school. Bachal’s mother was making sure her daughters got an education, against her father’s wishes. When her father discovered she was going to take a high school entrance exam, he beat her mother. He also beat her. She took the exam anyway. And then, determined to improve the shameful number of girls completing a primary education in Pakistan—only 59 percent—Bachal she started teaching a handful of local children in her home.

A decade later, Bachal was sitting on stage in an ornate theater at Lincoln Center in New York, talking about the 1,200-student school she runs in a gang-ridden part of Karachi through the Dream Foundation Trust, which she created and runs. Bachal “doesn’t take any nonsense. And the [local] men respect that,” says documentarian Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (CEO, SOC Films), who made a movie featuring the Pakistani activist and who was also on stage for the fourth annual Women in the World Summit, hosted by Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Along with her fellow Pakistani panelist Khalida Brohi (founder and director, Sughar Women’s Program) and of course Malala Yousafzai, all of whom began their education activism as teenagers, Bachal represented a major thread woven through the 2013 summit: the promise of the rising generation of young women activists, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

Call it the girls-who-change-the-world summit. Of course there were many veteran activists among the featured delegates, but there was also a sense that the current crop of tech-savvy young women may be able to change women’s education and labor-force participation even more quickly and decisively than their immediate predecessors. As Hillary Clinton put it in her summit address, “Much of our advocacy is a top-down frame. It’s past time to embrace a 21st-century approach to advancing the opportunities of women and girls” by empowering youthful, grassroots leaders.

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In India and Pakistan, the poorest 20 percent of boys get five more years of education than girls do.”

Technology

Though women are rocking education in the United States—they now get the majority of both college and graduate degrees—they are sorely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, known in the jargon as STEM. In fact, they’ve lost ground in the past decade. As the summit’s “Grooming Titans of Tech” panel moderator Chelsea Clinton pointed out, the number of female computer science majors has dropped from 20 to 12 percent in the past decade. Reshma Saujani, the founder of the organization Girls Who Code, a nonprofit that teaches underprivileged teens how to code in computer science languages, is looking to change those dreadful numbers. Saujani bragged to the WITW audience about how evangelical her first group of graduates is: they teach their friends what they learn in their coding classes.....

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/04/10/from-pakistan...

Here's Asia Times on a woman candidate defying tribal traditions in Pakistan's FATA region:

BAJAUR AGENCY, Pakistan - "My sole motive is to serve my people, especially women who have had no role in politics so far. I feel we can make progress only by bringing in women into mainstream politics." These are the words of Badam Zari, 40, who has filed her nomination papers with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). Zari is contesting from the militancy-hit Bajaur Agency, one of the seven districts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) near the Afghanistan border.

Zari's tiny but lush green house in Arang village is buzzing with activity as women from the neighborhood come in droves to congratulate her for the exemplary courage she has shown in standing for elections.

Forget standing for election, women in FATA do not vote. It was only in 1997 that the federal government gave the six million residents of FATA the right of adult franchise. Before that, only a few government-nominated elders called Maliks were entitled to cast votes or stand in election.

In January this year, the Election Commission of Pakistan proposed an amendment to the Representation of People Act, 1976, making it compulsory for every polling station to have at least 10% of its total votes cast by women. It went so far as to suggest that results from polling stations not be taken into account till that provision was met. The government, however, paid no heed to the suggestion.

"I am extremely worried about tribal women, most of who stay in their houses, which has prevented them from making any progress," Zari told IPS. "My only ambition is to struggle for the improvement of women's conditions in Bajaur Agency. Women here are suffering as none of the lawmakers in FATA have ever worked towards their development."

Her action, she is sure, will motivate women to come to the polling booths on polling day and vote in her favor....

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-100413.html

Here's an AP report on women making up majority of students at Karachi's Dow Medical University:

KARACHI, Pakistan — In a lecture hall of one of Pakistan’s most prestigious medical schools, a handful of male students sits in the far top corner, clearly outnumbered by the rows and rows of female students listening intently to the doctor lecturing about insulin.

In a country better known for honor killings of women and low literacy rates for girls, Pakistan’s medical schools are a reflection of how women’s roles are evolving. Women now make up the vast majority of students studying medicine, a gradual change that’s come about after a quota favoring male admittance into medical school was lifted in 1991.

The trend is a step forward for women in Pakistan, a largely conservative Muslim country. But there remain obstacles. Many women graduates don’t go on to work as doctors, largely because of pressure from family and society to get married and stop working — so much so that there are now concerns over the impact on the country’s health care system.

At Dow Medical College in the southern port city of Karachi, the female students said they are adamant they will work.

Standing in the school’s courtyard as fellow students — almost all of them women — gathered between classes, Ayesha Sultan described why she wants to become a doctor.

“I wanted to serve humanity, and I believe that I was born for this,” said Sultan, who is in her first year. “The women here are really striving hard to get a position, especially in this country where women’s discrimination is to the zenith, so I think that’s why you find a lot of women here.”

For years, a government-imposed quota mandated that 80 percent of the seats at medical schools went to men and 20 percent to women. Then the Supreme Court ruled that the quota was unconstitutional and that admission should be based solely on merit.

Now about 80 to 85 percent of Pakistan’s medical students are women, said Dr. Mirza Ali Azhar, the secretary general of the Pakistan Medical Association. Statistics gathered by The Associated Press show that at medical schools in some deeply conservative areas of the country such as Baluchistan in the southwest and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the northwest, men still outnumber women. But in Punjab and Sindh provinces, which turn out the vast bulk of medical students, the women dominate. At Dow, it is currently about 70 percent women to 30 percent men.

In comparison, about 47 percent of medical students in the U.S. are women, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

There are a number of different reasons why men don’t make the cut, say students, faculty and medical officials. Medical school takes too long and is too difficult. Boys have more freedom to leave the house than girls, so they have more distractions. Boys want a career path in business or IT that will make them more money and faster, in part because they need to earn money to raise families.

At Dow, for example, just about all the male graduates work as doctors, but only an estimated half the women do, says Dr. Umar Farooq, the school’s pro-vice chancellor. Nationwide figures on how many women graduates forgo actual practice don’t exist, but despite years of increased women’s enrollment, the gender breakdown of doctors remains lopsided. Of the 132,988 doctors registered with the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, 58,789 are women. The number of female specialists is even smaller: 7,524 out of 28,686....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-pakistans-medic...

Here's a Guardian story of Pakistani women in politics:

When Pakistan's new foreign minister arrived in India for talks in 2011 it triggered a media storm on both sides of the border – not because of policy but a Birkin bag. Hina Rabbani Khar, at 34 Pakistan's youngest and first female foreign minister, was put under international scrutiny for her pearl necklaces, Cavalli sunglasses and expensive handbags. "A guy in my place would never get such attention – nobody would be talking about his suit," she said at the time.

Powerful women the world over are evaluated on their appearance, but in Pakistan there are additional cultural constraints. However, as the country gears up for Saturday's general election – its first ever transition from one elected government to another – female politicians are standing up to change their future at the ballot box.

Figures released by the Election Commission show a 129.8% increase in the number of women contesting general seats since the 2008 election. As well as Khar, Pakistan has had a female prime minister in Benazir Bhutto and currently has Fehmida Mirza as speaker. Reserved seats for women have always been guaranteed in Pakistan's constitution, and over the years the number of quota seats has increased due to the efforts of activists. While reserved seats are improving representation (it stands at 22.5%, the same as in the UK, and better than the US's 17.8%), these women are predominantly from elite backgrounds. Those from poorer families remain excluded from the political system and, at the far end of the spectrum, many women are so disenfranchised that they cannot vote.

South Asia, despite its social conservatism, has a long history of female representation, with political systems often heavily dominated by a few families. Women such as Bhutto and India's Indira Gandhi stood in place of their father or husband, the family name allowing them to step outside traditional female roles: Khar contested elections because her father Noor was disqualified. Despite her swift rise to the cabinet she will not stand this year, because her father has been reinstated.

"It is difficult for women," says Anis Haroon, a caretaker minister for human rights and women. "It's non-traditional ground to tread, and women still bear the responsibility of home and children. Character assassination is easy in a patriarchal, conservative society. Women must work twice as hard to prove their worth." Last month, an election official in Lahore told the husband of prospective candidate Sadia Sohail that if she were elected, "the arrangements at your home will be ruined and no one will be there to attend your children"....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/09/pakistan-female-...

Here's an IBN Live story:

Finland best place to be a mother; India behind China, Pakistan
Press Trust of India | 08-May 17:47 PM
Beijing: Finland has topped the list of countries where mothers enjoy the best conditions in the world, while India ranks a low 142nd, below China and Pakistan, according to a new global report.
The annual report called 'State of World's Mothers 2013' was issued by an international NGO "Save the Children" before the Mother's Day in mid-May.
The report was featured by a ranking list of Mothers' index, showing the conditions of mothers in 176 countries, Xinhua news agency reported.
Among the reviewed countries, Finland was ranked the best country for being mothers followed by Sweden, Norway, Iceland while Democratic Republic of Congo was considered to be the toughest place.
The mothers' well-being was assessed under five indexes, including maternal health, child mortality, education, working income and political status.
According to the annual report, one in thirty pregnant women in DR Congo died from maternal causes, while in Finland the ratio was only one in 12,200.
As for education, women in DR Congo were likely to be educated for 8.5 years, compared with 17 years in Finland. Nearly 43 per cent of Finnish parliamentary seats were held by women, whereas the ratio in DR Congo was only 8 per cent.
Although Finland did not perform the absolute "best" in each index, it became the only country with all five indexes ranking among the top 12. The US places 30th this year while Pakistan was 139th on the list.
China ranked at the 68th place, the best ranking among the major emerging developing countries. The top ten countries attained very high scores for mothers' and children's health, educational, economic and political status. They include Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Australia.
The 10 bottom-ranked countries, which are all from sub-Saharan Africa, performed poorly on all indicators. They include Cote d'Ivoire (167), Chad (168), Nigeria (169), Gambia (170), Central African Republic (171), Niger (172), Mali (173), Sierra Leone (174), Somalia (175) and Democratic Republic of Congo (176).
Conditions for mothers and their children in the bottom countries are grim. On average, 1 woman in 30 dies from pregnancy-related causes and 1 child in 7 dies before his or her fifth birthday, the report said.

http://m.ibnlive.com/news/finland-best-place-to-be-a-mother-india-b...

Here's a Reuters' report on a newly-inducted female fighter pilot in Pak Air Force:

With an olive green head scarf poking out from her helmet, Ayesha Farooq flashes a cheeky grin when asked if it is lonely being the only war-ready female fighter pilot in the Islamic republic of Pakistan.

Farooq, from Punjab province's historic city of Bahawalpur, is one of 19 women who have become pilots in the Pakistan Air Force over the last decade - there are five other female fighter pilots, but they have yet to take the final tests to qualify for combat.

"I don't feel any different. We do the same activities, the same precision bombing," the soft-spoken 26-year-old said of her male colleagues at Mushaf base in north Pakistan, where neatly piled warheads sit in sweltering 50 degree Celsius heat (122 F).

A growing number of women have joined Pakistan's defence forces in recent years as attitudes towards women change.

"Because of terrorism and our geographical location it's very important that we stay on our toes," said Farooq, referring to Taliban militancy and a sharp rise in sectarian violence.

Deteriorating security in neighbouring Afghanistan, where U.S.-led troops are preparing to leave by the end of next year, and an uneasy relationship with arch rival India to the east add to the mix.

Farooq, whose slim frame offers a study in contrast with her burly male colleagues, was at loggerheads with her widowed and uneducated mother seven years ago when she said she wanted to join the air force.

"In our society most girls don't even think about doing such things as flying an aircraft," she said.

Family pressure against the traditionally male domain of the armed forces dissuaded other women from taking the next step to become combat ready, air force officials said. They fly slower aircraft instead, ferrying troops and equipment around the nuclear-armed country of 180 million.

"LESS OF A TABOO"

Centuries-old rule in the tribal belt area along the border with Afghanistan, where rape, mutilation and the killing of women are ordered to mete out justice, underlines conservative Pakistan's failures in protecting women's rights.

But women are becoming more aware of those rights and signing up with the air force is about as empowering as it gets.

"More and more ladies are joining now," said Nasim Abbas, Wing Commander of Squadron 20, made up of 25 pilots, including Farooq, who fly Chinese-made F-7PG fighter jets....

http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/pakistan-airforce-women-id...

Here's an AFP report on Pakistan Army's first female paratroopers:

Pakistan’s first group of female paratroopers completed their training on Sunday, the military announced, hailing it as a “landmark achievement” for the deeply conservative Muslim country.
Captain Kiran Ashraf was declared the best paratrooper of the batch of 24, the military said in a statement, while Captain Sadia, referred to by one name, became the first woman officer to jump from a MI-17 helicopter.
Women have limited opportunities in Pakistan’s highly traditional, patriarchal society. The United Nations says only 40 percent of adult women are literate, and are frequently the victims of violence and abuse.
But in 2006, seven women broke into one of Pakistan’s most exclusive male clubs to graduate as fighter pilots - perhaps the most prestigious job in the powerful military and for six decades closed to the fairer sex.
After three weeks’ basic airborne training, which included exit, flight and landing techniques, the new paratroopers completed their first jump on Sunday and were given their “wings” by the commander of Special Services Group, Major General Abid Rafique, the military said.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/life-style/art-and-culture/2013/07/...

Here's an open letter in The Guardian from Pakistani writer Mohammad Hanif addressed to TTP leader Adnan Rasheed:

Dear Adnan Rasheed,

I am writing to you in my personal capacity. This may not be the opinion of the people of Pakistan or the policy of the government, but I write to thank you in response to the generous letter you have written to Malala Yousafzai. Thanks for owning up that your comrades tried to kill her by shooting her in the head. Many of your well-wishers in Pakistan had been claiming the Taliban wouldn't attack a minor girl. They were of the opinion that Malala had shot herself in order to become a celebrity and get a UK visa. Women, as we know, will go to any lengths to get what they want. So thanks for saying that a 14-year-old girl was the Taliban's foe. And if she rolls out the old cliche that the pen is mightier than sword, she must face the sword and find it for herself.

Like you, there are others who are still not sure whether it was "Islamically correct or wrong", or whether she deserved to be "killed or not", but then you go on to suggest that we leave it to Allah.

There are a lot of people in Pakistan, some of them not even Muslims, who, when faced with difficult choices or everyday hardships, say let's leave it to Allah. Sometimes it's the only solace for the helpless. But most people don't say leave it to Allah after shooting a kid in the face. The whole point of leaving it to Allah is that He is a better judge than any human being, and there are matters that are beyond our comprehension – maybe even beyond your favourite writer Bertrand Russell's comprehension.

Allow me to make another small theological point – again about girls. Before the advent of Islam, before the prophet gave us the holy book that you want Malala to learn again, in the times we call jahilia, people used to bury their newborn daughters. They probably found them annoying and thought it better to get rid of them before they learned to speak. We are told Islam came to put an end to such horrendous practices. If 1,400 years later, we have to shoot girls in the head in an attempt to shut them up, someone like Russell might say we haven't made much progress.

Like you, I did a bit of research in Malala's hometown in Swat valley, and I remember a wise journalist warning your commanders that the Taliban might get away with slitting people's throats in public squares but not to try shutting down the girls' school. The government practically handed over the valley to your comrades, but their rule didn't even last for a few weeks because they ordered all women to stay home.

There was only one lesson to be learned: you can fight the Pakistani army; you can try and almost kill Pakistan's commander-in-chief, as you so heroically did; you might wage a glorious jihad against brutal imperial forces. But you can't pick a fight with the working women in your neighbourhood and hope to win. Those women may never get an audience at the UN but everyone – from cotton picker to bank teller – cannot be asked to shut up and stay home, for the simple reason that they won't.

It has also been suggested that your letter represents the mainstream opinion in Pakistan. But don't fall for this praise. You might think that a lot of people support your just fight, but there is a part of them that worries whether their girl will get the grades to get into a good university. And if you tell them there is a contradiction there, they might tell you to leave it to Allah...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/18/letter-taliban-...

"If war breaks out, I will be flying on my senior's wing as his wingman, well, wingwoman," she said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph at the headquarters of the Pakistan Air Force in Islamabad.....For Fl Lt Farooq, it would provide the ultimate chance to prove that women were every bit the equal of men in the cockpit.
"When I get orders I will go and fight. I want to prove myself, to show that I'm doing something for my country."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/10279119/Pa...

Malala inspires girls school enrollment surge in KP, reports Bloomberg:

MINGORA, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban's attempts to deter girls from seeking an education, epitomized by the shooting of 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the face last year, are backfiring as school enrollments surge in her home region.

While Yousafzai missed out last week on the Nobel Peace Prize, her plight is helping change attitudes in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which lies at the center of a Taliban insurgency. The four-month-old provincial government boosted education spending by about 30 percent and began an enrollment drive that has added 200,000 children, including 75,000 girls.

Yousafzai's story "is certainly helping us to promote education in the tribal belt," Muhammad Atif Khan, the province's education minister, said by phone. "Education is a matter of death and life. We can't solve terrorism issues without educating people."

Taliban militants targeted Yousafzai in retaliation over her campaign for girls to be given equal rights to schooling in a country where only 40 percent of adult women can read and write. Though the Nobel award went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Yousafzai was showered with accolades in a week in which she published her memoir: she won the European Union's top human rights prize and met President Barack Obama at the Oval Office.

The shooting occurred a year ago as Yousafzai traveled home on a school bus in Mingora, a trading hub of 1.8 million people where a majority of women still cover their faces and girls aren't comfortable answering questions from reporters. The bullet struck above her left eye, grazing her brain. She was flown for emergency surgery to Britain, where she lives today.

The increased media attention on Swat since the shooting is pressuring government officials to improve educational standards and encouraging locals to send their kids to school.

Three days ago in Mingora, as local channels flashed the news that Yousafzai didn't win the peace prize, high school student Shehzad Qamar credited her for prompting the government to build more institutions of higher learning.

"She has done what we couldn't have achieved in 100 years," Qamar said. "She gave this town an identity."..
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"Taliban wanted to silence me," Yousafzai said in an interview with the BBC last week. "Malala was heard only in Pakistan, but now she is heard at the every corner of the world."

Sadiqa Ameen, a 15-year-old school girl in Swat, said she wanted to read Yousafzai's book, titled "I am Malala." The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, has threatened to kill Yousafzai and target shops selling her book, the Dawn newspaper reported, citing spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.

"This is probably the first ever book written by a Swati girl," said Ameen, who lives near Yousafzai's school. "I am sure her story will be something we all know and have gone through during the Taliban rule."

Musfira Khan Karim, 11, prayed for Yousafzai's success in the Nobel competition with her 400 schoolmates in Mingora.

"I want her back here among us," Karim said in her school's playground. "I want to know more about her. I want to meet her."

http://www.registercitizen.com/general-news/20131013/taliban-intimi...

According to Pakistan's Federal Bureau of Statistics, the proportion of women at work in the country has increased from 16.3% to 24.4% in a decade.

But activists say that despite this, many women still find it difficult to be accepted in the male-dominated workforce.

Qualified driver Aliya Bibi spoke to the BBC about her struggle to find employment in Rawalpindi.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25421606

Women participation in the work force in Pakistan has increased to 25% from 16% a decade ago. Jobs held by Pakistani women range from airline pilots, fighter jet pilots, military generals, soldiers, police officers, parliamentarians, ministers, business executives, doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, fast food workers, taxi drivers, farm workers, etc etc.

Women now make up 4.6% of board members of Pakistani companies, a tad lower than the 4.7% average in emerging Asia, but higher than 1% in South Korea, 4.1% in India and Indonesia, and 4.2% in Malaysia, according to a February 2011 report on women in the boardrooms.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2011/09/working-women-seeding-silent-social....

Forbes magazine released its third annual "30 Under 30" list on Monday, "a tally of the brightest stars in 15 different fields under the age of 30," and three Pakistani women made the cut in the Social Entrepreneurship category (ET). The most well-known woman on the list is Malala Yousafzai, who became an international champion of girls' education after she was shot by the Pakistani Taliban in October 2012. She is credited with co-founding the Malala Fund, which aims to increase girls' enrollment in formal education in the developing world; her co-founder, Shiza Shahid, is also on the list. Shahid, a graduate from Stanford University, was also listed on TIME magazine's "30 Under 30" list in December 2013. Rounding out the list is Khalida Brohi, who founded Sughar, a non-profit organization that helps women start small businesses so they can become more financially independent, after witnessing the death of her friend in an honor killing.

Here's a VOA report on a woman chef in New York:

NEW YORK — Few women make it into the top ranks of chefs in New York City. It’s even harder for women who are not U.S. citizens, but one young Pakistani woman has broken this barrier.

Fatima Ali is the sous - or assistant - chef at the famous Café Centro in Midtown Manhattan. She is also one of the very few Pakistani women to graduate from America’s top culinary institute, the Culinary Institute of Arts.

But what makes Ali even rarer, according to a VOA survey, is that she may be the only non-American female chef in any of 70 top New York restaurants.

Ali grew up in Pakistan, and she says there’s so much for her to take back to her home country.

“There’s so many things that I've been exposed to in the U.S., that I may not have been exposed to in Pakistan. Like the plethora of ingredients that are available here," she said. "But it’s been really interesting, taking what I have learned in America and then whenever I go back home to visit, cooking for my family and friends with the ingredients that I love from there.”

In July, Ali competed with other chefs on the Food Network TV show, "Chopped." Her blend of Pakistani spices and Western cuisines won her the top award of $10,000.

“The fact that I won, I suppose was such wonderful validation, all like the sacrifices that my family has made to put myself through school, and to be away from home for so long and the biggest thing for me was to inspire other young Pakistani girls to follow their dreams,” explained Ali.

“She has great potential, and I give her another two to three years, and she definitely will be a master chef,” said Jan Hoffmann, executive chef at Cafe Centro.

Ali wants to make a difference through her cooking. She was first inspired by poor children at her mother’s charity organization.

“I think I was 12 or 15 when I set up my first food stall at one of my mother’s festivals to raise money for these kids the fact that I had made even a small amount of difference cooking for somebody, I think that’s what just sealed the deal for me,” Ali added.

Ali hopes to return to Pakistan and establish subsidized kitchens where poor families can enjoy low-cost, organic meals - and where teens can learn cooking and other job skills.

http://www.voanews.com/content/pakistani-woman-makes-it-big-as-new-...

Humera Ashique created history after becoming the first Pakistani woman to clinch gold in an international event in Nepal on Sunday.

The 24-year-old judoka took gold at the South Asian Judo Championship in Kathmandu as she defeated a Nepalese athelete to clinch the 48kg event.

The Lahore-based athlete is happy to realise her dream after training hard at the national camp since November. "I'm just relieved now," said Humera.

"I was so tired of failing to win the ultimate title. But after so many years and hard work I've finally managed to win a gold medal. Before leaving for Nepal I told my parents that I'll succeed. I performed sensibly and outplayed very tough opponents."

Meanwhile, Pakistan took second position in the overall championship with three gold medals, three silver and six bronze, next to India on the top, while Nepal finished third.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/humera-first-p...

KARACHI, Pakistan – Just days into her job running a police station in Pakistan's largest city, Syeda Ghazala had to put her training to the test: she opened fire with her .22-caliber pistol at a man who shot at police when they tried to pull him over during a routine traffic stop.

It's not clear whether it was Ghazala's shots that wounded the man before he was arrested, but as the first woman to run a police station in Pakistan's often violent port city of Karachi, she'll likely have many more chances to hit her mark.

When Ghazala joined the police force two decades ago, she never dreamed that one day she would head a police station staffed by roughly 100 police officers — all men. Her recent promotion is part of efforts by the local police to increase the number of women in the force and in positions of authority. Shortly after she assumed her new job the city appointed a second woman to head another police station.

In a country where women have traditionally not worked outside the home and face widespread discrimination, the appointments represent a significant step for women's empowerment.

"The mindset of people is changing gradually, and now they (have) started to consider women in leading roles. My husband opposed my decision to join the police force 20 years ago," said the 44-year-old mother of four. But by the time this job rolled around, he had come full circle and encouraged her to go for it. "It was a big challenge. I was a little bit hesitant to accept it."

The station house is in Clifton, a posh area home to the elite of this sprawling metropolis of more than 18 million people. But in a city prone to family feuds, political unrest and jihadist violence — where 166 officers were killed in the line of duty last year — it's by no means an easy assignment. Crimes ranging from petty theft and muggings to terrorism or murder are all part of a day's work, Ghazala says.

Running a station is a high-profile job in the Pakistani police, one that requires the officer to constantly interact with the public and fellow officers. It's also a key path to advancement. Senior police officer Abdul Khaliq Sheikh, said he and others in the top brass hope Ghazala's appointment leads to more women joining the force.

"Our society accepts only stereotype roles for women. There is a perception that women are suitable only for particular professions like teaching," he said.

The police force is also training the first batch of female commandos, a group of 44 women going through a physically intensive course involving rappelling from towers or helicopters and shooting an assortment of weapons.

Currently, the two in Karachi are the only women running police stations in Pakistan. In the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where women make up less than one percent of the roughly 75,000-member police force, women only run stations specifically designed to help female crime victims.

In the southeastern Baluchistan province, there are only 90 women on the police force and no women station heads. In Punjab province, only one woman has ever run a station house, back in 2005, but currently no women hold the position.

Ghazala said most people she has encountered in her new job have been supportive, and she's become a bit of a celebrity in the neighborhood. She said during her career she's only had a few instances where she's felt discrimination. When she got the highest marks in a training course required for promotion, some of the men objected, saying that in Islam women couldn't lead men.

But she said the commander simply told the men they should have gotten better grades.

"It was the only moment somebody objected to me as a woman," she said. "Otherwise, all my career, fellow and senior officers encouraged me a lot."

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/06/15/locked-and-loaded-pakistan-...

One recently became the country’s first female fighter jet pilot. The other is CEO of a group of schools. Yet another left an engineering degree to become captain of the national cricket team.
Though terrorism has plagued Pakistan, women are bravely making inroads in different fields, defying all odds to represent the modern face of their country.
News and images of honour killings and acid attacks on women in the country often make headlines around the world, but the progress made by Pakistan’s women is hardly shown.
Women in Pakistan are building impressive careers, launching successful, independent ventures of their own and training young girls to follow in their footsteps.
With impressive resumes and university pedigrees that rival most male executives, these women are making waves.
“Most women in Pakistan are extremely progressive in their presence in every field whether it is politics, sports, entertainment, fashion, performing arts or business but all we need is to portray them positively,” said Ambreen K, who is pioneer member of the Pakistan Change Initiative (PCI) — a Dubai-based group working to highlight positive image of Pakistan. Ambreen said the PCI strives to present the positive side of the country through various events.
“We recently held an event in Dubai to showcase modern face of Pakistani women and their contribution to the society and it was a big hit,” she said.
Though traditional gender roles still exist for many women in Pakistan, some are making impressive gains.
They are part of a growing cadre of women who are determined to move forward despite threats from hardliners.
Women make up slightly more than half of Pakistan’s population of 180 million. Though only 17 per cent of them are considered “economically active”, given the chance they have proved their mettle in every field.
The women in Pakistan have never been so proud as when First Lt Ayesha Farooq became the first female fighter pilot in the Pakistan Air Force in 2013.
She had joined the Air Force at the age of 17 after battling to convince her mother to let her realise her dreams.
Cultural practices used to prevent many women from working outside their homes in Pakistan. Today, that is changing. More women are now leading a number of successful businesses in various industries while creating previously unheard of opportunities for other women.
One such woman is Fatima, an educationist and model in Lahore.
Fatima is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Beaconhouse School System, a network of private schools founded by her mother-in-law. Another example is Sana Mir, captain of Pakistan’s women’s cricket team, who has become a great inspiration for girls to join sports. Mir was enrolled in an engineering degree at a national university, but left to pursue her passion for cricket.
Pilates instructor Zainab Abbas was determined to be different when she opened her fitness studio, Route2Pilates, in Lahore after receiving training in Bangkok, Thailand. She carries out rehabilitation workouts for people with joint problems as well as specialised workouts for pregnant women.
Zahra Afridi chose to be an interior designer and runs her own interior design company. Her most recent project was the Classic Rock Coffee café in Islamabad. She is also an avid kick-boxer and regularly trains to stay fit.

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/pakistan/beyond-terror-and-taliban-p...

#‎Pakistan‬ squash star Maria Toor of South Waziristan raises voice for equality at ‪#‎AsianGames2014‬ via @rapplerdotcom http://www.rappler.com/sports/world/69831-pakistan-squash-equality-... …
INCHEON, South Korea- As a child Maria Toorpakay Wazir had to dress as a boy to be able to play sports in Pakistan and now as the country's number one women's squash player she says there is still too much resistance.

Toorpakay, competing at the Asian Games in South Korea, vowed not to stop helping girls in Pakistan overcome discrimination and cultural obstacles even though she has received threats for her work.

"I feel that this is my responsibility," said Toorpakay after she was beaten by Hong Kong's Annie Au in the women's singles late Sunday, September 21. "I have to raise my voice for the other girls."

Toorpakay's family comes from Waziristan, the lawless tribal area in northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. Malala Yousafzai, the acclaimed teenaged activist for girls' education, comes from the same region.
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Toorpakay at first competed in weightlifting, frequently beating the boys at tournaments. But her father made her switch to squash, where her gender was discovered.

After being required to produce a birth certificate to play squash at the age of 16, the truth about Toorpakay came out and she was bullied by other players.

Toorpakay said Pakistan is changing – but very slowly.

"Always there are people who do support this logic but there are people who still resist this logic," she said.

But Pakistan's number one women's squash player believes the tide cannot now be turned back. Toorpakay said her rise in international squash should be an example to other young women in Pakistan.

"I have to give them the same opportunity so that they become champions too," she said.

Toorpakay turned professional in 2006 and came third in the World Junior Women's Championship in 2009.

"This is a beautiful sport, and today I feel that God has given me a chance to come up to such position," she said.

She vowed to help Pakistan's women to emerge from the shadows through sport, saying it had helped her overcome her tough life in one of the world's most dangerous regions.

"Squash is my lord and I've worked so hard to get to this position," she said. - Rappler.com

MEERAN PUR, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Azeema Khatoon, a mother of five, has spent most of her life laboring in Pakistan's sunbaked cotton fields for less than $2 a day.

Last year, she and a group of around 40 women struggling to feed and clothe their families on their meager wages did something almost unheard for poor women working in rural Pakistan - they went on strike. The gamble paid off.

Khatoon, 35, says she has nearly doubled her wage in the past year, now taking home $3.50 a day compared to $2, with her success just one story cited by labor activists to encourage rural women to band together and form a united workforce.

Agricultural wages in Pakistan have a massive impact on women, and in turn on their families. About 74 percent of working women aged 15 and are employed in agriculture, according to the International Labour Organisation.

The 2014 Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum ranked Pakistan as the second worst country in the world in gender equality after Yemen.

Many women are employed informally on low earnings and with limited protection, with women's agricultural wages falling to an average of $1.46 a day in 2012 from around $1.68 in 2007, said the ODI in its recent Rural Wages in Asia report.

On top of the meager wages, women laborers also tell labor activists that landlords or managers will sometimes try to cheat them of their rightful money because they cannot read the records. Sometimes bosses sexually harass them.

Heat stroke, snake bites, exposure to pesticides and cuts on their hands from handling the rough cotton bolls are other hazards of their daily toil.

Khatoon and others have started bringing their school-age children to check the books, or tie knots in the edge of their colorful saris to count how many days they have worked.

"Even though they can't read the numbers of letters, they can say I have worked one day for each knot," said Javed Hussain, the head of the Sindh Community Foundation, which aims to improve the socio-economic conditions of communities and has trained 2,600 women in skills like bargaining and labor rights.

Muhammad Ali Talpur, the director of the government-linked Pakistan Central Cotton Committee, says owners are sympathetic to the workers' problems but warns paying much higher wages may drive Pakistan's cotton farmers out of business.

"Cotton producers are being squeezed by low prices and producers are having a hard time to meet their costs," he said.

Global cotton prices have fallen, hitting a five-year low this summer due to slowing demand from China, a glut in the market, and growing popularity of manmade fibers.

Pakistan produces about 13 million bales a year from a world total of about 119 million bales. This year the government has already bought one million bales to try to shore up the price.

Hussain said the Sindh Community Foundation talks to small landlords and trains workers how to read market prices, trying to ensure there is negotiation, not confrontation.

He said the bigger landlords weren't usually willing to negotiate over wages and there was no legislation protecting casual agricultural workers but small owners did often sympathize with their workers.

Karim Ullah, who owns a small cotton farm near Meeran Pur, agreed to pay his workers $3 per day this year but said he couldn't raise wages further unless cotton prices rose.

"We pay wages according to the rate at which the cotton is sold. Only if the going price increases can I pay the pickers more," he said. "Also, I'm just a small farmer. It's the big landlords with hundreds of acres who set the rate."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/06/us-pakistan-cotton-wideri...

In Pakistan, a skilled birth attendant delivers health and safety for mothers and children

By A. Sami Malik

Antenatal and postnatal care for women in rural Pakistan has improved dramatically, thanks in part to the work of women like Shagufta Shahzadi, a skilled birth attendant trained under a UNICEF-supported programme.

KASUR DISTRICT, Pakistan, 3 December 2014 – “My biggest pleasure is to see that the mother and child are both healthy after the delivery,” says Shagufta Shahzadi, 30, a skilled birth attendant (SBA) who lives and works in Nandanpura village, Kasur district, in Pakistan’s Punjab province. 

© UNICEF Pakistan/2014/Zaidi

Shagufta Shahzadi leaves her home in Pakistan's Punjabi province. A sign on the wall displays ‘Community Midwife’.

“There is a huge difference between services provided by a trained birth attendant and an untrained traditional midwife. A skilled person knows how to prevent and deal with complications during pregnancy, at the time of delivery and delivering postnatal care for mother and child.”

A day’s work for Shagufta could include delivering a baby, advising pregnant women on prenatal care, walking to the neighbouring village to provide postnatal care to a mother and the newborn. She takes a lot of pride in her work and feels a sense of achievement in the fact that due to her services, there hasn’t been a case of a pregnant mother or newborn death in her area over the last year.

Looking back at the struggle she had to make throughout her life, Shagufta recalls, “I was two months old when my father passed away. My mother raised me and my sister with the little money she earned by stitching cloths. Her resources were meagre, yet she made sure that we both completed our matriculation. Thereafter, we completed our respective trainings. My sister became a lady health worker, and I became a skilled birth attendant.”

© UNICEF Pakistan/2014/Zaidi

Shagufta takes notes while talking with a patient, to keep a record of the periodic check-ups she conducts.

In 2012, Shagufta graduated from an 18-month community midwife training course organized by UNICEF at the District Headquarters Hospital in Kasur.

It wasn’t easy, as the younger of her two daughters was only a few months old. Support from her husband and the rest of the family helped her complete the training, and their support continues while she works as an SBA.

“Things have changed”

Comparing the prenatal, delivery and postnatal care exercised by untrained birth attendants 25 to 30 years ago to the modern day services offered by SBAs, Shagufta sees a big difference.

“My mother tells me that when I was born, a traditional midwife came to our house to manage the delivery," she says. "She had no concept of hygiene and did not even wash her hands before checking my mother. She placed some ash from the stove on the floor and delivered me there. Things have changed now. Lives lost due to unskilled practices can now be saved.” 

© UNICEF Pakistan/2014/Zaidi

Shagufta checks a pregnant woman who has come to the maternity care centre she operates in her home.

Shagufta provides antenatal and postnatal services to women and children in 10 villages within Kasur district.

As the only SBA in the area, and also because of her friendly disposition, Shagufta is a popular local figure, and women feel comfortable discussing issues with her.

“I conduct periodic check-ups of the pregnant women, keeping a record of their blood pressure, body temperature, pulse rate and oedema,” says Shagufta.

“It is important that I keep my contact with her right from early days of pregnancy till the delivery, and thereafter to provide postnatal care to the mother and the newborn.”

Positive results

Pakistan has a high rate of maternal and child mortality, and one of the reasons is the lack of SBAs, especially in remote rural areas. In collaboration with the Health Department of Punjab and development partners, UNICEF initiated a training program for SBAs in various district hospitals in 2005 to train young women belonging to rural communities so that they acquire the skill and start their own maternity practice within their communities.

Shagufta sits with a mother and her newborn child, delivered just a few days before.

“Due to the positive results of this programme, the Government of Pakistan has scaled up the initiative across the country,” says Dr, Tahir Manzoor, Health Specialist at UNICEF Pakistan. “In Punjab province, more than 5,000 women have been trained and are performing valuable services within their own communities. We can already see the positive impact of their services and are certain that it will improve the scenario of mortality and morbidity for mothers and new born children in Pakistan over the next few years.”

Shagufta believes that ensuring health and safety for mother and child is imperative.

“If mothers and children are healthy, the entire society will be healthy. The future generations will be healthy," she says. "We must try to save lives, as life is precious, and you only get it once.” 

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/pakistan_78038.html

The fearless policewomen taking on the Taliban: Pakistan's female volunteers put through their paces in intense desert commando training 
Policewomen will take charge in police raids within anti-terror operations
More women recruited as NATO forces pull out of bordering Afghanistan
Comes amid greater co-operation between Pakistan, Afghanistan and US 

Running through the arid desert in the searing heat armed with AK-47s, these pictures show the gruelling work out undertaken by Pakistan's female volunteers. 
They have been put through their paces in an intense commando training to help combat the Taliban.
After the training - which took place in the Hakimabad district of Nowshera in northern Pakistan - the policewomen will take charge in police raids within anti-terror operations. 
More women are being recruited to fight the Taliban as NATO forces withdraw from neighbouring Afghanistan this month.
They also have the advantage of being able to perform jobs that men cannot - in the segregated and strictly religious world of Pakistan - women can only be searched by women. 

Their training also comes in the wake of signs of greater co-operation between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US in the last week. 

They also have the advantage of being able to perform jobs that men cannot - in the segregated and strictly religious world of Pakistan - women can only be searched by women. 

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Policewomen holding kalashnikovs during commando training in Hakimabad district of Nowshera, Pakistan

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After the training, the policewomen will take charge in police raids within anti-terror operations

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The women are put through their paces in the searing heat of the desert to combat the Taliban in Pakistan 

Their training also comes in the wake of signs of greater co-operation between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US in the last week. 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2870426/The-fearless-police...

Check out stories of Pakistani female executives Jehan Ara (P@SHA), Zeelaf Munir ( English Biscuits), Tahira Raza (First Women Bank), Madiha Khalid (Shell Pakistan), Shafaq Omar (Unilever) and Atiqa Lateef (Byco).

http://tribune.com.pk/story/836606/female-corporate-powerhouses-in-...

According to Forbes, less than 5% of top global companies have female CEOs. Slightly more than 10% of the 1,645 billionaires in the world are women. And there are currently only 22 countries that have women as their head of state. At a glance, power still seems a disproportionately male domain.

But time and again, there are trailblazers who crack that code. They see opportunity where others see a disadvantage. They learn to maneuver a world that seems skewed towards serving those already at the top. Armed with their vision, ambition and persistence, they create paths where there were none. Driving this point home are some of Pakistan’s prominent female executives who have overcome multiple impediments to excel in their field and stand as reminders of what one can achieve if they put their mind to it.

Jehan Ara, responsible for developing the P@SHA brand, is a force to reckon with in the male-dominated field of Information Technology. With almost 30 years of experience in marketing, communication and interactive media in Hong Kong, the Far East, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, she has built an impressive portfolio and remains mostly unchallenged in the field.

Ara completed a Bachelor’s degree in arts from St Joseph’s College for Women and immediately entered the workforce. Today, she is an entrepreneur, a motivator, a social activist and a strong proponent of extending the power and use of information and communication technologies to empower and enable communities. She is currently working on a start-up, P@sha’s Technology incubator, the first of its kind in Pakistan, which aims to provide launching platforms for the next big companies in the country.

Jehan Ara

President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT (P@SHA)

1. Name three of your all-time favourite books.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

2. What is the greatest strength you bring to your organisation?

Commitment and passion.

3. What is the one question you ask at every interview?

What drives you?

4. What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career?

I left a highly-paid, exciting position in Hong Kong, where I also had a major stake in the firm, and moved back to Pakistan with my parents.

5. Have you ever been a victim of workplace gender discrimination?

Yes. Once, in the absence of the group managing director once, a potential Japanese customer who came to our office in Hong Kong refused to have a business discussion with me because I was a woman. He wrote back to the MD from Japan, asking if he could fix a mutually convenient time, but my colleague wrote saying, “If you can’t do business with Jehan, you cannot do business with this company.”

6. What brings out the competitive streak in you?

I am not a competitive person. I believe more in collaboration and the strength of working together towards a common goal.

7. What is your least favourite thing about humanity?

The hatred that many people feel towards those who think differently.

8. What would you title your autobiography?

“A roller coaster ride!”

9. If you could have dinner with any one person, who would it be?

The late Steve Jobs.

10. If you could retire tomorrow, what would you do?

I don’t know the meaning of the word ‘retire’ but if I had to, I would want to have enough money to open up a high-tech bookstore with multimedia and fast speed internet access, a gift shop and a coffee shop where I could meet people, strike up a conversation with them, read a book and listen to music in peace.

Zeelaf Munir

Chairperson of the executive management board at English Biscuit Manufacturers (Private) Limited

Zeelaf Munir’s 20-year career is much like the woman herself — enterprising, dynamic and purposeful. But it is important to note that this female powerhouse was not initially inclined towards a career in the corporate world. It was her insights into the human psyche and leadership qualities that eventually earned her a prominent spot in the family-owned business.

After completing her medical degree from Dow Medical University, Karachi, Munir moved to the United States in 1994 to specialise in psychiatry from the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri. Later, she completed a masters degree from Johns Hopkins University and an advanced management program at Harvard Business School. A physician by training, Munir started her professional career in 1998 as a practicing psychiatrist at Fellowship Health Resources Incorporated in Delaware, USA. Within two years, she was promoted to medical director where she excelled by overseeing 40 programmes, expanding into seven states and spearheading innovative, evidence-based psychiatry models.

Munir has since headed a number of organisations. In 2010 she was elected president of the Association of Pakistani Physicians in North America, the largest Pakistani association outside the country. She has also led the Delaware Psychiatric Society as president and is an active member of the Asia Society, Acumen Fund and various other non-governmental organisations. She is currently also a board member of the community development programme which comes under the Planning and Development Department of the government of Sindh.

1. What adjectives would your references use to describe you?

People who really know me will say that I am passionate about what I do. I show strong leadership and have an innate proclivity to do whatever I can for humanity.

2. Name three of your all-time favourite books.

One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen and Good to Great by Jim Collins.

3. What is the one question you ask at every interview?

What is the boldest move you have ever made regarding your work that has achieved beyond expected results for the company?

4. What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career?

While I was happily practicing psychiatry, many opportunities came my way that tempted me to accept greater leadership and administrative roles in the healthcare industry in the United States but I decided to come back and contribute to my country.

5. What brings out the competitive streak in you?

Any challenge which appears impossible will always excite me and urge me to take it head-on.

6. What is your least favourite thing about humanity?

As humans we’ve been given the gift of wisdom, which will only deepen with continued learning. It really upsets me when I see complacent people. Also, I don’t feel too good about passive aggressive individuals and women who don’t take risks.

7. What would you title your autobiography?

“A life well-lived, every drop counts”

8. If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?

Just meeting Warren Buffet would be a huge learning experience for me.

9. If you could choose one person and have them truthfully answer one question, who would you select and what is the question?

The one person I have always wanted to meet is Muhammad Ali Jinnah. I want to ask him how he feels about Pakistan today and why.

10. If you could retire tomorrow, what would you do?

I think people like me only retire when they die. However, if I was to retire tomorrow, I think I would like to get involved in hands-on social work.

Tahira Raza

President of the First Women Bank Limited

Raza holds an MBA in banking and finance from the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, and a banking diploma, DAIBP, from the Institute of Bankers in Pakistan. In 1975, she started her career with Muslim Commercial Bank and joined the First Women Bank Limited (FWBL) in 1989 as one of its founding executives. After serving there for 14 years she moved to the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) where she became the first woman in the history of NBP to reach the position of senior executive vice president and group chief risk management in 2012.

In 2013 she rejoined FWBL as the bank’s president and has held the position ever since.

1. What adjectives would your references use to describe you?

They would say that I am headstrong, a lateral thinker, very disciplined and a workaholic in a positive way.

2. Name three of your all-time favourite books.

Akhri Chatan by Naseem Hijazi, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie.

3. What is the greatest strength you bring to your organisation?

I am very structure-oriented and I prefer a certain degree of discipline. Also, I have brought the culture of merit with me.

4. What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career?

I took up a failed project worth millions of rupees for which I had no previous knowledge or skills. I was warned by my colleagues that it was career suicide, but I managed to turn the project into a success story within 11 months.

5. Have you ever been a victim of workplace gender discrimination?

Yes. When I had just started with my career, there came a point when only the men in my organisation were promoted and I was the only one to question it. That bold move worked in my favour and after that I hardly faced any workplace gender discrimination.

6. What brings out the competitive streak in you?

Challenges make me very competitive; overcoming them, facing adversity and achieving goals that were previously thought to be impossible.

7. What is your least favourite thing about humanity?

Sympathy; especially where it is not due.

8. What would you do if you won a lottery?

When I become an equity holder, I would inject it as capital in First Women Bank.

9. What would you title your autobiography?

“No shortcut to success”

10. If you could retire tomorrow, what would you do?

If I retired tomorrow, I would just golf all day long.

Madiha Khalid

Head of Human Resources for Shell Pakistan

Madiha Khalid never shies away from a challenge. She has always pushed the boundaries and made it her life’s mission to eradicate male chauvinism with her extensive body of work.

In July 2005, Khalid, who holds a Bachelor’s degree in business strategy from the University of Wollongong, Australia, and an MBA in human resources from the Institute of Business Management, Karachi, began her career as a business partner for consumer banking at ABN-AMRO bank. In May 2006, she joined Shell Pakistan as a recruitment and learning advisor, looking after their summer internship and graduate programmes along with vacancy-driven recruitment. Two years later, she moved on to become one of the business partners managing global functions and became the recruitment manager for Shell Pakistan.

In January 2011, she became a business partner for the largest commercial skill pool as an HR Account Manager while retaining her recruitment portfolio. Due to her excellent display of skills, she was further asked to supervise Shell’s recruitment in UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia. Currently as the head of HR, she looks after over 400 staff members.

1. What adjectives would your references use to describe you?

Resilient, opinionated and spirited.

2. Name three of your all-time favourite books.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, The End of the affair by Graham Greene and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

3. What is the greatest strength you bring to your organisation?

Empathy, approachability and the ability to listen. I think part of being a true leader is to be accessible, engaging and inspirational.

4. What is the one question you ask at every interview?

What makes you get out of bed every day?

5. What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career?

Taking up my current role. I had never managed a large team, didn’t have any significant payroll or labour management experience and these were all core elements of the job. What got me through the early days was to consistently believe in myself and never let anyone convince me otherwise.

6. What is your least favourite thing about humanity?

How casually and frequently we break the codes of morality.

7. What would you title your autobiography?

“High heels and breaking glass ceilings”

8. If you could have dinner with any one person, who would it be?

American technology executive, activist and author Sheryl Sandberg.

9. If you could retire tomorrow, what would you do?

I would become a coach and help girls achieve their dreams.

10. If you could choose any one person and have them truthfully answer one question, who would you select and what is the question?

I would ask American poet and novelist Sylvia Plath why she didn’t walk away from her unhappy marriage.

Shafaq Omar

Director of human resources for Unilever

Spotting talent comes naturally to Shafaq Omar. She has worked at some of the top firms in the country and can easily sift through thousands of potential candidates and narrow down the options to a handful of interviewees just by taking them through a series of unconventional questions.

A gold medallist from Kinnaird College, Lahore, and an MBA from the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Omar started her career in HR as a management trainee at Nestle Pakistan in Lahore. Later, she moved to Karachi and re-entered the workplace with short stints in a consultancy and a financial services company where she headed the HR department for the International General Insurance group. Soon after, she joined a local conglomerate, Engro Corporation, where she headed the HR department in their extended foods business and the parent company. From there on, Omar moved on to become the head of HR at Royal Dutch Shell Pakistan and in 2013 she joined Unilever where she currently serves at the head of HR.

1. What adjectives would your references use to describe you?

Approachable, empathetic and authentic.

2. Name three of your all-time favourite books.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, The Forty rules of Love by Elif Shafak and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

3. What is the greatest strength you bring to your organisation?

I channel the benefits of an open-minded work environment to further Unilever’s corporate objectives.

4. What is the one question you ask at every interview?

Would you describe yourself as more of an operational/organised person or a visionary/big thinker?

5. What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career?

Taking a mid-career break to be a stay-at-home mother.

6. What brings out the competitive streak in you?

When I want to prove something to myself.

7. What is your least favourite thing about humanity?

How we don’t understand that we all originate from the same energy, the same light.

8. What would you title your autobiography?

“Towards soul consciousness”

9. If you could have dinner with any one person, who would it be?

The Turkish author and columnist Elif Shafak.

10. If you could choose one person and have them truthfully answer one question, who would you select and what is the question?

I would talk to my paternal grandmother, a wise, gentle and beautiful woman who was ahead of her time, and ask her more questions on life.

Aatiqa Lateef

Group Chief of Staff at Byco Industries Incorporated

Aatiqa Lateef’s goal in life has been to empower women. While advancing her own career, she has made a conscious effort to encourage other women to join the corporate world and to shun stereotypes that women take as a given.

A Doctor of Law from the South Texas College of Law with an MBA in strategy from the Texas A&M University, Lateef initially put her qualifications to test as a business strategy consultant with the global firm BearingPoint in Chicago and later as an associate partner heading the Corporate Practice Group of Awan Raza’s Pakistan-based multinational law firm. She also served as a general counsel for House Building Finance Company Limited where she was instrumental in transitioning Pakistan’s oldest financial institution from public to private sector. Lateef also serves on the boards of Khushhali Bank, The Indus Entrepreneurs’ women’s entrepreneurship incubator and the preeminent Business Magazine, IBEX.

In addition to her professional focus in positioning market entities for entry onto global platforms, she is also a noted speaker and an advocate for women’s empowerment and success within the corporate environment. This includes authoring several publications which focus on the subject.

1. What adjectives would your references use to describe you?

It’s been said that I lend a unique and valuable perspective with an eye to detail. I’m someone who will always rise to the occasion and in doing so I’m a game-changer.

2. Name three of your all-time favourite books.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and Oh, the places you’ll go! by Dr Seuss.

3. What is the greatest strength you bring to your organisation?

I’ve been told that I’m goal-oriented and objective.

4. What is the one question you ask at every interview?

What is the one thing you would change about your career?

5. What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career?

I’ve taken a lot of risks but I think my biggest career-related risk has yet to come.

6. Have you ever been a victim of workplace gender discrimination?

Maybe not explicitly, but perhaps as unconscious bias in the workplace I have. At the onset of joining a company, I was advised by a female colleague that she had overheard male colleagues declaring that a woman in my role could not handle the job. I was, of course, indignant and so a few of us ladies decided to change their minds. We simply stood our ground when we were being addressed by more aggressive colleagues and this eventually resulted in meetings becoming more balanced.

7. What brings out the competitive streak in you?

Whenever I am underestimated, it brings out my fighting spirit.

8. What is your least favourite thing about humanity?

In general, humans lack compassion for others. Our generation must teach the next one to be kind to creation and the universe will be kind to them.

9. What would you title your autobiography?

“A cliff-hanger”

10. If you could choose one person and have them truthfully answer one question, who would you select and what is the question?

That would be American television screenwriter Gene Rodenberry. I would ask him what captured his imagination.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/836606/female-corporate-powerhouses-in-...

Popinjay dreams of making poverty a thing of the past for Pakistani women

As a student fortunate enough to be studying in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – and so geographically separated from these realities – the story deeply impacted her. Even though she managed to land a six-figure engineering job after graduation, Saba couldn’t get the story out of her mind.

“In addition, I had always carried within me a deep love for the beautiful craft techniques I saw in Pakistan, where I grew up, as well as in my travels around the world – India, Bhutan, Ethiopia, and Sri Lanka,” she recounts. “I felt that this talent was stunted due to a lack of opportunities and connections to larger markets.”

So in 2011 – when America was still recovering from the effects of a terrible recession – Saba decided to return to her homeland and try to make a difference. She unwittingly stumbled upon her life’s mission in the process.

“I started a pilot in Pakistan to provide young women access to basic education and livelihoods. As it started gaining traction in the local community, I realized that it lit my fire like nothing had before,” she says. “Quitting my job after that was a no-brainer.”

The pilot program – which evolved into a full-fledged non-profit organization called BLISS – involved after-school classes in which girls learnt embroidery and needlework. Their embroidered fabric would then be sent to local producers to be finished into high-quality handbags, which were sold in boutiques. The proceeds would be used to fund the girls’ education, as well as recruit other students.

Their handiwork soon became extremely popular with customers not just locally, but from all over the world. In an article on Medium, Saba recalls an encouraging note from a customer from Canada:

I’ve never loved a thing as much as I love my BLISS bag. You make bags that change the world! People ask about it because it is so unusual, so lovely; it is embroidered art. When I tell them the story of families lifted economically, the bag becomes so much more beautiful.
In addition, the handbags were featured in several national and international media platforms, and even in fashion shows. On the surface, it seemed like a success, but there was a deeper issue that had Saba worrying behind closed doors – how the team was going to go about “scaling up our model after the initial proof of concept.” At that time, the BLISS team had a grand total of two people, with just 40 artisan women under its wings.
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A massive overhaul of both business model and mindsets was what came next as BLISS was re-branded into the for-profit Popinjay, and came online in late 2013. The name is a Middle English word that means parrot.

“We chose a parrot because it is an animal that is associated with a voice,” Saba explains. “Our parrot stands for the voice of good fashion, the voice of the artisan women whose skills and stories we spread, and the voice of the consumer who wants to create positive impact with their purchase.” https://www.techinasia.com/popinjay-make-poverty-history-pakistani-...

Pakistani-American Iba Masood's Gradberry is launching today out of Y Combinator to connect US companies with vetted technical talent. Candidates quickly build a talent profile, connecting their GitHub, online portfolios and projects, and LinkedIn account. The talent profile is then vetted by the Gradberry team and approved candidates are passed along to specific employers.

The Gradberry of today is a result of three years of work, across several continents, multiple product iterations, two failed applications to Y Combinator and one very passionate founding team.
(Karachi-born) Iba Masood, co-founder and CEO says Gradberry works with graduates and employers. The site has jobs listings and courses, so students can take courses to fill in the gaps in order to land a position, or they can be hired and their employer will sponsor them to take a course to learn a required skill for the job. Masood says the majority of its revenue today comes from the latter. The way it works is that a company hires a recent graduate who looks promising, but lacks a requisite skill. For example, a marketing graduate could lack training in social media marketing. They take the online course, get a certificate and they should be better prepared for the job at hand.

Masood says she and co-founder, CTO Syed Ahmed started the company in 2012. Their original idea was a LinkedIn for students where recent graduates could have a place to apply for jobs, but by earlier this year they realized providing job listings wasn’t enough and they had to address this skills gap, and shifted their focus.

She reports they currently have approximately 38,000 registered users (representing 650+ universities globally), with 1,500 employers using the Beta. Among the first to sign on was IBM, which used the platform in developing economies in the Middle East and Asia.

The company uses a freemium model for employer job ads offering the first three ads free, after which they start paying for ads and training for employees as needed.

They have approximately 30 courses today ranging from languages like Arabic to social media marketing to learning HTML5 and they hope to crank that up to 120 courses by October. Masood says they began by producing the courses themselves, but they don’t want to be in the content creation business long-term. “What we’ve realized with content creation, it’s a capital-intensive, heavy model. It’s also intensive on the side of creation. To have high quality courses in terms of production value we would need a studio, the right lighting and video,” she explained. Moving forward they will oversee content creation, but won’t be creating it themselves.

Instead they are working on partnerships with companies like Microsoft and Adobe to produce the content for them. The software companies gain access to a highly valuable 18-24 market who will be trained in their product sets and there is value in that for these companies, which Gradberry hopes to take advantage of.

Gradberry has 6 employees and up until now they have been bootstrapped through revenue generated from the site and small prizes totaling $40,000 they have won in startup competitions. Currently they are part of MassChallenge, a Boston-based startup incubator, which Masood says has offered invaluable assistance in the development of her company.

“MassChallenge has connected us to stellar mentors and innovators in the Boston community, who have helped us refine our operational strategy, to scale on both sides of the equation –that is, course content and career opportunities,” she said. She added that they also have great connections to multinational organizations, who will be partnering with them to provide employer-led courses and job opportunities for fresh talent.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/11/gradberry-aims-to-fill-college-gra...

(Bloomberg) -- In Pakistan, it’s difficult to find a more successful money manager than Maheen Rahman.
The 39-year-old turned a loss—making asset management company into a profitable acquisition target, led her flagship equity fund to the country’s top performance and positioned her new firm for what she estimates will be a 40 percent jump in client assets this year. For all that, Rahman still struggles to prove she belongs in an industry where all 21 of her rival chief executive officers are men.
“My biggest challenge has been building a reputation and trust in a market that values grey hair and being male,” said Rahman, who oversees the equivalent of $180 million in stocks and bonds as the CEO of Alfalah GHP Investment Management Ltd. in Karachi. “After all these years, I still routinely get asked why I don’t just design clothes.”
While Rahman’s rise to the top of a financial firm would have been almost unheard of in Pakistan two decades ago, her struggle to gain the acceptance of male peers illustrates the challenge professional women still face in a country with the smallest proportion of female workers among Asia’s 15 largest economies. Investors who bet on Rahman have been rewarded with a 443 percent return from her IGI Stock Fund since its inception seven years ago, 117 percentage points more than the benchmark index and the biggest gain among 34 peers tracked by Bloomberg.
Female Workforce
Rahman, who’s also the youngest head of a Pakistani asset manager, has distinguished herself with timely bets on energy and interest-rate sensitive companies amid a rally in the nation’s $71 billion stock market that outpaced every other country worldwide except the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
Pakistan’s KSE 100 Index has returned 326 percent -- or 195 percent in dollar terms -- since Rahman’s IGI Stock fund started in July 2008 as the country completed its first-ever democratic transition of power, secured a $6.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund and pledged to sell stakes in state-run companies. Surging consumer spending and Asia’s highest dividend yields have also convinced investors to look past power blackouts and a war with Taliban insurgents on the Afghan border.
The gains for women in Pakistan’s $233 billion economy haven’t been nearly as strong. Just 25 percent of the nation’s female population is part of the workforce, up from 22 percent in 2008, according to data compiled by the World Bank. That compares with an average rate of 52 percent for Asia’s largest economies.
Even at Rahman’s firm, she’s one of just six women among a total staff of 48.
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Rahman, the daughter of a Unilever Plc executive, graduated from Lahore University of Management Sciences in 1997 and earned a master’s degree in economics and finance from Warwick Business School in the U.K. She began her career as an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. in Singapore before returning to Pakistan. She joined BMA Capital Management, a Karachi-based brokerage, as the head of research in 2007, then took on the CEO role at IGI Funds Ltd. in 2009.
IGI Turnaround
Rahman doubled assets under management in her first year at the helm of IGI and led the firm to a 15 percent return on equity -- a gauge of profitability. The gains came even as industry assets shrank 7 percent in the year ended June 2010, according to the Mutual Funds Association of Pakistan....
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Last year, she began favoring companies that benefit from lower borrowing costs, a move that paid off as the central bank cut interest rates to an 11-year low. Some of her biggest holdings in the IGI Stock Fund as of January included Pak-Suzuki Motor Co., Pakistan’s biggest carmaker, and Lucky Cement Ltd., the nation’s second-largest maker of the building material.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-19/woman-earning-400... 

Duke Political Review--Examples of Pakistan's growing civil society::

Humaira Bachal started teaching when she was twelve years old. Backed by her determined mother, who bore verbal and physical abuse for the sake of her daughters’ education, Humaira managed to go to school despite all the obstacles. Her mother would cut wood and sell it in the market just so she could keep sending her daughters to school as the men of the house were opposed to their education. In her home, in one of the poorest neighborhoods at the outskirts of the metropolitan Karachi, twelve-year-old Bachal then taught other children what she had learned at school. When she was fifteen, Karachi’s Rotary Club spotted her initiative. They provided funds so she could move this project of hers to another building. This became the Dream Model Street School. Another remarkable Pakistani woman, Oscar-winning Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, filmed Bachal’s journey for the philanthropy Chime for Change—a campaign founded by the fashion house Gucci to further female empowerment—in a documentary titled ‘Humaira Dreamcatcher’. This documentary debuted at a concert in London where Bachal shared the stage with the pop star Madonna. The singer appealed for funds, and promised to contribute, to build a new structure that would house an expanded Dream School. Today Bachal’s school is educating 12,000 young Pakistanis. Bachal came up with an innovative way to encourage female enrollment. It was something like a ‘buy one, get two free’ offer—with every girl that parents admitted to the school, they would get to educate two sons free of cost. She has also pioneered home-based teaching for older girls and women, keeping in mind the social conservatism in the area. Humaira is a strong, independent Pakistani woman who is emancipating other women and furthering the cause of education in her community.

Another young Pakistani leader is Jibran Nasir. In the 2013 elections, he ran as an independent candidate and although he was unsuccessful, he gained the admiration of many by addressing taboo issues and through his unique campaigning—he refused to advertise himself on billboards and instead opted to spend the money on societal improvements such as fixing sewers to prove his competence. Come December 2014, the lawyer and human rights activist again rose to prominence when he took a stand against the Lal Masjid cleric, Abdul Aziz, who had refused to condemn the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar. He was eventually joined by a few hundred more and when the cleric started threatening them, they refused to budge until the police registered an FIR against Aziz for inciting violence. Pioneering an unapologetic approach to taking on Taliban sympathizers, this attitude was fairly new to Pakistan’s civil society movement. Despite a disappointing turnout at his recent protests against the Sindh government for allowing a banned, sectarian organization to hold public rallies, and a social media campaign to defame him, the activist appears to be standing firm.

http://dukepoliticalreview.org/the-lesser-known-pakistan/

LAHORE: With Pakistani women often bearing the brunt of cultural barriers and inequality, the ladies-only Pink Rickshaw service has put women from Lahore in the driving seat to generate revenue for their families.

The service was launched with the intention of providing women from the lower social strata of society an opportunity to travel in comfort and at the same time giving them financial independence.

The women’s only service will also enable female commuters to travel without fear of getting harassed on the street. It aims to be a safer option as opposed to other forms of public transport.

Read: Polluting away: Mingora’s rickshaws whiz past govt regulation

As part of the initiative, the way women are perceived in the public eye will be revolutionised, encouraging other women to follow suit and enter the many male denominated professions.

“Thus, the initiative’s effect will perpetuate a virtuous cycle of women becoming self-reliant independent and productive members of the society,” states one of the objectives of the project.

Read: Gender Roles: ‘Women empowerment necessary for development’

The project informed that there is only one female taxi driver in the whole country and projects such as ‘The Pink Rickshaw’ will empower other women to open up to new opportunities and freedoms.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/859845/women-take-the-wheel-as-pink-ric...

How High Can #Pakistan’s Air Force #PAF Women Fly?

http://nyti.ms/1Mi4Izf

Flight Lt. Ayesha Farooq, Pakistan’s only combat-ready female air force pilot, has become both an international celebrity and a symbol of a new Pakistan, where women are breaking barriers and taking on roles traditionally closed to them. Yet Pakistan is also known as a country where women’s place in society yo-yos up and down. For example, in the 1990s it entrusted the leadership of the entire nation to Benazir Bhutto while still resisting girls’ education and advances in women’s rights.

Given this contradictory attitude, how far can Pakistan’s female air force officers expect to go?

That’s hard to answer. The air force has been more progressive than other branches of the military. At its inception, it modeled its service environment after the British Royal Air Force. In the late 1950s, while receiving an increasing amount of American equipment and mentorship, its chiefs turned more toward the ethos of the United States Air Force, and women began serving as air force doctors and nurses.

Then, in 1977, Group Capt. Shahida Perveen joined the force as a psychologist in a prominent role; she did psychological testing for the recruitment center, then helped establish an Institute of Air Safety to research how human error led to air accidents. She describes receiving “red carpet treatment” on joining the air force, and credits Zulfikar Ali Bhutto — the prime minister at the time, and Benazir Bhutto’s father — with opening doors for women who had ambitions beyond the medical units.

Still, women remained barred from other branches of the air force until 1995, when Ms. Bhutto, as prime minister, persuaded Air Chief Marshal Abbas Khattak to think about women joining branches of the air force beyond the medical branch, “now that women were being considered for everything — thanks to her influence,” says Riazuddin Shaikh, a retired air marshal who served under Air Chief Marshal Khattak.

Female cadets were then recruited into administrative and accounting departments. They became air traffic controllers, worked in law, logistics and education. They were trained for aeronautical engineering, avionics and information technology; they played huge roles in designing specialized avionics software and managing hardware at air force bases. Despite some reservations among male officers, Air Marshal Shaikh recalls no serious adverse reactions.

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Eight years ago, Lieutenant Farooq’s extended family saw her choice to join the air force as an aberration from a woman’s normal path, and they tried to dissuade her, she related in a recent lecture. But, she said, she took their criticism as a challenge that drove her harder to succeed. Today, she said, she is happily married to a fellow air force officer, and her once-skeptical relatives now ask how their own daughters can join the air force.

In the force, Lieutenant Farooq was trained like the men. When fuel fumes made her nauseated her first time up in a Mishaal propeller plane, her instructor simply passed her the controls and ordered her to fly. Only later, on her first solo flight, she related, did she really feel in control in the air, with the “entire world beneath my feet.”

These days, the Pakistani Air Force eagerly trumpets her rise as a symbol of its modernity. But Air Marshal Shaikh is realistic. “It will take time before a woman can ever become the head of a branch, or even the head of the air force,” he says — the implication being that we may never live to see it. Still, growing numbers of Pakistani women view an air force career as an option, not just to serve their country but to gain the ultimate feeling of control over their lives.

HerCareer is #Pakistan’s first female-only online jobs marketplace 

http://techin.asia/1Gnp6yM via @Techinasia

In 2012, the World Bank estimated that female participation in Pakistan’s labor force measured a measly 28 percent. This figure was one of the lowest participation rates in the region, with Bangladesh (68 percent), Sri Lanka (46 percent), and India (36 percent) all ranking comfortably higher than Pakistan. However, what is heartening to note is that the female participation rate in 2000 stood at a paltry 16.3 percent, meaning that there was almost 12 percent growth and an additional 8 million women joined Pakistan’s employment pool during this time.

The reality of the situation is that more needs to be done to promote female inclusion and participation in the Pakistani labor force. To a certain degree participation is inhibited by cultural factors; the World Bank claims over 80 percent of Pakistani women cite domestic duties as a major reason for non-participation. Others such as lack of education and patriarchal attitudes towards working females also contribute to the abysmally low figure. However, as Pakistan’s economy continues to stagnate, there are greater expectations for women to be financially stable and contribute to household expenditure. The rising trend of female participation and presence of a thriving freelance community confirm this view.

Catering to market need
“Pakistani universities produce 800,000 women graduates every year,” says Abdul Muizz, founder of female-only jobs marketplace Hercareer.pk. “Most are eager to join the workforce and be productive members of society.”

Muiz says the inspiration for launching the portal came after several years of experience in the web services industry and a desire to target a niche market. Furthermore, he wanted to create a virtual community where women would feel comfortable interacting with each other, be able to reach out to mentors for assistance and advice, and promote gender diversity at the workplace.

The founder claims the startup experienced significant early traction soon after it launched in 2013. Despite a minimal marketing budget, word of the portal spread through referrals and recommendations, with many women eager to learn more. Today, HerCareer.pk has approximately 37,000 registered users and is a profitable venture. The startup has also partnered with multinational companies like Telenor and AP Moller Maersk to promote and encourage gender diversity. It counts several high profile female corporate executives as part of its pool of mentors.

Part of the reason for the startup’s success has been clear and demonstrated efforts by employers to maintain gender balance among employees. Companies in Pakistan are slowly understanding the positive benefits this balance brings to culture, talent retention, and organizational behavior and are willing to invest more resources to ensure the right mix. However, Muizz is quick to explain that this view should not be misconstrued as bias towards a particular gender. Firms aren’t compromising on their key hiring principles or skills they wish to see in a particular candidate. They’re simply willing to cast the net far and wide, carefully screen candidates before filling a particular position, and do all they can to ensure an environment where women feel safe and protected. “There’s no special treatment,” he adds.

Jobs are just one component
Community feedback has also been vital in helping to tweak the startup’s model. Muizz reveals that the overwhelming majority of users wanted assistance in marketing themselves better and therefore appealing to employers. Some were also geographically restricted. They wanted to work, but their circumstances did not allow them to maintain a steady 9-to-5 job, and wanted to freelance instead. Acting on this feedback, Hercareer started to diversify its services, and incorporated a strong element of content marketing. Users were now using the portal to seek advice, post questions, and apply for opportunities.

Breaking stereotypes and driving through gender-based obstacles, Shamim Akhtar from Rawalpindi is Pakistan’s first female truck driver.

The 53-year-old single mother said “Nothing is too difficult if you have the will, however if women make themselves believe that they can’t do certain tasks then nothing works for them.”

Driving cars for many years, Akhtar decided to step out of Pakistan’s traditional domestic rule which requires women to stay home, when she saw her family going through financial hardship.

Therefore, in order to support two children at home and to cover the cost of her three eldest daughters’ weddings, Akhtar set off to take driving lessons for heavy vehicles.

“My son tells me not to drive too far, it’s dangerous but I told him that we have to earn a living. We only eat when we earn,” Akhtar said as she prepared herself to transport a load of 7000 bricks from a factory in Rawalpindi to Azad Jammu and Kashmir, a gruelling 200 kilometres trip.

An inspiration for many, she was issued a public service vehicle license, a first for a Pakistani woman- allowing her to pull trailers, drive trucks and tractors.

“Whatever I am today, it is because of the Islamabad Traffic Police training course,” Akhtar said humbly.

Further, while most Pakistani male drivers lack formal driving lessons for heavy vehicles, Akhtar seems to have an edge over the men which she uses to teach a novice.

And among many of her colleagues, her student Usman Ali too, has a lot of respect for Akhtar.

“She behaves well, and treats us like her sons. We too treat her as a mother and that is how our relationship is,” one of Akhtar’s colleagues said for her.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/959657/pakistans-first-female-truck-dri...

Meet Kulsoom Abdullah,

Pakistani-American, Kulsoom Abdullah, has been Weightlifting – at both the national and international level since 2010 – in addition to Crossfitting.
Born and bred in the US, Abdullah’s parents (born in Pakistan; her father from Tangi and her mother from Charsadda) immigrated to America years ago, before Abdullah’s birth. In 2005, Abdullah’s father passed away in Pakistan, leaving behind his wife and five children – of which Abdullah is the eldest. A Computer Engineer by profession, with a PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology, I first discovered Abdullah through a picture of hers that an acquaintance had shared over Facebook. In the picture Abdullah is featured Weightlifting – in hijab. Intrigued, I googled Abdullah and contacted her via her website in the hopes that she would agree to being interviewed over email. She agreed.
At the national level, Abdullah attended the ‘US National Competition’ in 2011, and in the same year she represented Pakistan (at the international level) at the ‘2011 World Weightlifting Championships’. For the latter, Abdullah was not only the first female to compete, but she was also the first female to compete in hijab. And this year, Abdullah represented Pakistan in South Korea, at the ‘2012 Asian Weightlifting Championships.’
However, in 2010 after qualifying to compete at the American Open, the USA Weightlifting Committee barred Abdullah from contending in the competition due to her clothing – clothing modifications were simply not allowed. Participants had to adhere to wearing a ‘singlet’ – particular clothing for athletes which sort of looks like a swimsuit with shorts.

BBC News - Meet Shazia Parveen, #Pakistan's first female fire fighter http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34427826 …

A young woman is breaking taboos in Pakistan by being the country's only female fire fighter.
It is a highly unusual job in a conservative country where millions of women still struggle for basic rights like health care and education - at least three million girls are not in school and, in many rural and remote areas, child marriage is still prevalent.
Twenty-five-year old Shazia Parveen, who lives in a small village in South Punjab, wanted to prove that women can work alongside men regardless of how challenging the job is.

Can Soccer Bring Gender Equality to #Pakistan? #Karachi FC has both men's and women's divisions http://nyti.ms/1PCpeMO 

KARACHI, Pakistan — Every Pakistani boy, it seems, has dreamed of becoming a star in one of the country’s national sports: cricket, field hockey or squash. But access to sports, like so many other things here, has historically rested on class, gender and privilege; the poorest are denied the same opportunities as the rich, and girls have been left out all but completely.

The Karachi United Football Foundation, however, believes that football — the kind Americans call soccer — can bring ethnic, sectarian and gender diversity to Pakistani sports. By promoting the game at the grass roots, the foundation is investing in football not just as a sport, but as a democratizer.


Sports have always mirrored politics in South Asia. The British introduced football in the 19th century; it thrived in the Bengal region, where enthusiastic local players competed barefoot against British military teams. Elsewhere on the Subcontinent, however, cricket eclipsed football; Indian cricketers, whose political ambitions revolved around independence, were more eager to beat the British at their own game.

Pakistan’s interest in football began at the time of the country’s formation: The Pakistan Football Federation was created in 1947, and Pakistan joined the Fédération Internationale de Football Association in 1948. The game became extremely popular in the provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the western part of Pakistan, but drew most of its players from the former Bengali state, from which East Pakistan had been created.

In the 1960s, a golden age for sports in Pakistan, cricket, squash and field hockey were taught at elite schools like Aitchison College in Lahore, where the scions of reputable families could become sporting icons, backed by financial support and social connections. With foreign tours came international acclaim, and cricket’s popularity skyrocketed.

Meanwhile, football was finding popularity in the less affluent streets of Quetta, Karachi and Dhaka. Karachi’s slums, with their large populations of Sheedis and Makranis — many of them descendants of slaves from Africa who had settled in Sindh and Balochistan — held passionate matches in which players were barefoot, cementing the game’s reputation as a “poor man’s sport,” according to the journalist Ali Ahsan in the newspaper Dawn.

Soon Pakistan’s national team was playing Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka. Pakistan even faced Israel in the 1960 Asian Cup qualifiers, but the severing of diplomatic relations in 1967 prevented any repeat match.

Then, in 1971, came East Pakistan’s independence as Bangladesh, costing Pakistan the most valuable players for its national and international teams. With the nation as well as the teams struggling to recover, only large corporations and institutions like the army, railroads or the Water and Power Development Authority could afford to hire footballers to form company teams.

--------

Football in Pakistan has many challenges to overcome, including scant media attention, and a dearth of money and corporate sponsorship. Pakistan also lacks a strong regular organization to supervise football properly on a national level.

Yet with Sacramento Republic Football Club’s signing of Kaleemullah Khan, who captains the men’s national team, to be the first Pakistani football player for an American club, and the Pakistani women’s team captain, Hajra Khan, trying out for three Bundesliga clubs in Germany this summer, it’s obvious that football talent exists in Pakistan. And that there is reason to believe the Beautiful Game can do something beautiful for Pakistan.

#Pakistan woman commando armed with H&K MP5 ensures safety of #Sikh pilgrims from #India http://www.indiatimes.com/news/world/this-pakistani-female-commando... …

Last week, a Pakistani female commando was spotted at Wagah railway station, standing guard as Indian Sikhs boarded the train to visit Nankana Sahib on the auspicious occasion of Gurupurab. With a Heckler & Koch MP5 no less.

Several hundred Sikh pilgrims took a special train to arrive in Pakistan to attend the three-day long festivity commemorating 547th birthday of Guru Nanak.

At a time when India is grappling with the menace of intolerance, this photograph shows how humanity knows no communal discord. As Daily Pakistan reported, the message behind this powerful image is twofold. First, it breaks through the threshold that divides India and Pakistan on religion.

And second, it buries the 'stereotypes' that Pakistan's been associated with, towards its women.

While it comes as a surprise for most of us, a woman Pakistani guard deserves as much respect as any male commando should. And hats off to Pakistan for taking a giant step towards upholding communal tolerance.

BBC News - #Pakistan's Female CEO and Most Successful Investment Banker Maheen Rahman on breaking gender barriers http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35468487 …

Pakistan's finance sector is dominated by men but the country's most successful investment banker is a woman.
Maheen Rahman ranks fifth in Forbes 'Top 40 under 40'.
Pakistan correspondent Shaimaa Khalil went to meet her.

A #Pakistani girl's boundary-breaking motorbike journey across #Pakistan's length & breadth @CNNTravel http://cnn.it/1nEUnar 

His early death meant he never fulfilled his wish.

As his eldest child, Irfan decided to take up the challenge -- and along the way smash stereotypes inPakistan as a female biker.

The 21-year-old student from Lahore, northeast Pakistan has become a fearless rider in the past two years, traveling through regions of the conservative country where it's taboo for women to venture out unaccompanied, let alone on two wheels.

But the transformation didn't come easy to her.

In 2013, when her younger brother bought a simple bike with a small 70cc engine, her mother urged him to teach Irfan how to ride and encouraged her to finish her late father's ambition.

"At the beginning it was a big struggle for me," says Irhan. "I was so confused about how to manage the gear, the clutch, the brakes.

"It was very confusing and frustrating but then I got the hang of it."

She began using the bike to run errands around Lahore.

In June last summer, she decided to venture further afield with a six-day solo trip through the Azad Kashmir region, a disputed region in northeastern Pakistan that borders India and China.

"I want to go to Kashmir because I've heard so much about it," she adds.

"They say 'Kashmir, Jannat E Nazir,' meaning it's a paradise on earth.

"I don't want to be that person who just sees it in pictures -- I want to go and experience it for myself on my motorcycle," says Irfan.

She traveled first to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, then rode against stunning backdrops of mountains, rivers and lush landscapes to Murree -- a suburb located on the southern slopes of the western Himalayan foothills.

From there she rode on to Pakistan-administered Kashmir's capital Muzaffarabad.

Then she continued through the region's forested Neelam Valley with picturesque towns and villages like Sharda and Kel.

"When I was on the road, it was like a coming together of my mind, body and soul," she says of being out of the congested cities. "I felt free.

"I could meditate properly. I really felt different, very emotional and liberated."

Buoyed by the success of her first long distance trip, in August 2015 she decided to go even further, biking 3,200 kilometers from Lahore through North Pakistan up to the Khunjerab Pass on the border with China.

On arrival, she was pleased to be told that while foreign female riders had previously traveled there, she was the first Pakistani motorcyclist the locals had met.

Over the course of 20 days, she had traveled to places including Deosai Plains -- one of the highest plateaus in the world -- and Chilas, a very conservative small village where residents hostile to outsiders threatened her with rocks.

Her main concerns were about road accidents as she motored alongside trucks on treacherous roads.

The ever-present danger wasn't enough to stop her.

"I'm not so fearful because I know that if death has to come, it'll come anyway even if I'm at home," says Irfan.

"I can't avoid it. I can't obstruct my dreams because of a fear of death and accidents."

Three women boxers from #Pakistan competing in #SouthAsianGames2016 in #India http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pakistans-women-boxers-look-up-t... …

Three Pakistani women boxers - Khoushleem Bano, Rukhsana Parveen and Sofia Javed - are on the verge of scripting history on Indian soil, when they step into the ring for the very first time.

The three pugilists credited the biographical sports film on five-time world champion and Indian boxing icon Mary Kom as the biggest influence which has inspired them to take up a career in boxing.
"We have been watching Mary Kom and it (movie) has really influenced us," the trio, donning their tracksuits with the Pakistani flag embroidered on it, told IANS.
However, the young Pakistani boxers admitted that it was not an easy journey for them initially, when they informed their family and friends about their decision to take up boxing.
"There are a lot of anti-groups who don't accept us. Initially, even our family and friends were not happy with us. But now everyone is supporting, be it our government or the boxing federation," Khoushleem said.
In fact, the trio picked up boxing only in the early part of 2015 and were trained by their coach Nauman Karim - a bronze medallist at the 2003 World Boxing Championship - at Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar for the multi-national sports event.
"We stepped into the boxing ring just eight months ago. I know it will be tough to fight with an experienced boxer like Mary Kom and others, but our coaches have trained us well to fight in the ring," Khoushleem said.
But the 23-year-old, who hails from the scenic valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan, is eagerly looking forward to meeting Mary Kom in the boxing ring.
"I know it will be tough to fight with an experienced boxer like Mary Kom. But I am sure I will learn a lot from her in the boxing ring," Khoushleem who will be competing in the fly-weight (51kg) category, said.
Rukhsana, who was member of the Pakistan World Cup Kabaddi team which won a bronze medal in Punjab in 2014, said, "After having learnt that Pakistan has no woman boxer, I took up the challenge to fight in the boxing ring."
"The movie Mary Kom has motivated me to take up this challenge. Insha Allah (If God's willing) you never know we might go back home with a medal from here," the 60kg category pugilist from Multan said.
Sofia Javed, who also made a reference to Mary Kom, said, "I am very happy to be in India and to make our international debut here. We have been practicing hard for more than a year for this event."
Crediting her coach and family members for all their support, the 20-year-old from the Peshawar said, "We are all happy to make our debut here in India. I am mentally prepared for the competition and optimistic to get a medal for our people of Pakistan."
The trio also foresee that women's boxing will progress in Pakistan with people supporting them for taking up the challenge to wear the gloves which were once only worn by male boxers in their country.
"Women's boxing will surely progress by leaps and bound in Pakistan. A lot of people have helped us. Our government, boxing federation and our coaches have assisted us with an open heart to fulfill our dreams," Rukhsana said.
Appreciating the Pakistani women boxers for being influenced by her biography, Mary Kom asked Khoushleem, Rukhsana, and Sofia to "keep fighting and never give up halfway". She also hoped that the three Pakistani ladies will do well on their international debut.
"They need more motivation. If they need my help they can always come to my (boxing) academy (at Manipur)," the 2012 London Olympics bronze medallist said.

#Women: Drivers of change in #Pakistan. #BenzairBhutto #MalalaYousuzai #SharmeenObaidChinoy http://bit.ly/1TtiMxw 

Pakistan was the first Islamic country to elect a woman prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, and is home to the youngest Nobel Prize winner, Malala Yousufzai. Pakistani women have conquered Mount Everest, they fly fighter jets and sit in many top academic positions. Many other Pakistani women have had leadership roles, and now Chinoy is a driver of change. Yet, the reality of Pakistani women’s everyday living defies an easy description.

Women in Pakistan live with widespread gender-based discrimination, attitudes that are preserved by patriarchal, tribal and cultural traditions and the twisting of Islamic injunctions. Discriminatory legislation, unresponsive state institutions reinforce this inequality.

Killing women for ‘honour’ — the subject of Chinoy’s documentary — for marrying a person of their own choice, something that is allowed by religion and law, is a feature in Pakistani society. The real figures, believed to be higher, may never be known, but the government last year admitted on the floor of the National Assembly that there were 456 and 477 such cases reported in 2013 and 2014, respectively. As close family members commit these murders they are not reported. Only in one case has the state pursued the killings as murders.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) claims on the basis of the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey that 39 per cent of 15 to 49-year-old married women have been subjected to abuse by their spouse and one in ten has experienced violence during pregnancy. Due to social taboos more than half the women who experienced violence, kept it secret.

The societal bias against women, which was institutionalised during General Zia Ul-Haq’s regime (1977-88), has resulted in massive abuse against women.

Feeble attempts by Benazir and General Pervez Musharraf to undo such laws floundered against opposition from the ‘mullahs’. Many of these laws continue to deny women their constitutional rights to gender equality, raising legal and administrative barriers to their political and economic empowerment.

Pakistan’s successive governments have demonstrated little courage in standing up to the clergy who consider women ‘a commodity’ and vehemently oppose any progressive legislation. And any change that has been approved, the governments have been too lax in implementing them. Pakistani men, it seems, are not ready to give up male privilege.

One major reason why these oppressive attitudes and customs have persisted is the low level of education among women in Pakistan. According to the 2015 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index, Pakistani women spend only seven years in education compared to men who are marginally better with 8.5 years. With only 1.9 per cent of gross domestic product earmarked for education, women end up benefitting even less. Pakistan is meeting only nine of its 33 indicators on women’s empowerment for the Millennium Development Goals, says the UNDP report.

Educated urban women, from well-provided families, who, like Chinoy, should be drivers of change in Pakistan, have mostly chosen lives that are not resistant to societal norms. The premium on their education is not what they give back to society, but finding a good marriage match. There are few people like Chinoy bringing forth the plight of women who are suffering the strangulation of a culture often misrepresented in the name of religion.

Educating and empowering women can address many of Pakistan’s problems. While the ruling structure dithers, ‘determined women’ such as Chinoy, Yousufzai and others are the trailblazers in Pakistan and much of the developing world.

#Pakistan: Women trained in motorcycling for mobility as part of government-supported program @AJEnglish

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/09/pakistan-women-tr...

Women in Pakistan are getting on their bikes in a bid overcome the barriers that limit their mobility and ultimately widen economic and gender inequalities.

Under Women on Wheels, a government-supported project, 35 women who had been trained to ride motorcycles participated in a rally on Tuesday in the city of Sargodha, in Punjab province.

Launched in January this year, the initiative encourages women to become independent, and reduce their reliance on male relatives for day-to-day activities, as well as getting to school, college or work.

Tuesday's event was attended by Ingrid Johansson, the Swedish ambassador, representatives from UN Women Pakistan, local police and provincial officials.

The rally resulted in a rare sight. It is something of a taboo for women to ride motorcycles in Pakistan, a common form of transport for men, in cities and the countryside.

As dozens of women raced through the district in the Punjab on their motorcycles, their message was clear: We will be independent.

Wearing a pretty floral headscarf to match her dress, Pakistani's first female commercial truck driver certainly stands out among her colleagues.
Shamim Akhtar, 53, from the city of Rawalpindi, is breaking down barriers by becoming the first woman in her field - but the practical widow and single mother-of-five was just trying to make ends meet when she took up her unique career.
'If you have the will, nothing is too difficult,' she said in an interview with Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. 'If you believe you can't do anything, then you will accomplish nothing.' 


Ms. Akhtar needed a way to support her two underage sons and pay for the weddings of her three adult daughters when she took up driving professionally. 
She already knew how to drive a car - unlike in nearby Saudi Arabia, it is perfectly legal for women to drive in Pakistan - but it is still quite unusual for women to work outside the home in the Middle Eastern nation. As of the end of 2013, only 24.4 per cent of Pakistani women work at all, according to Pakistan's Federal Bureau of Statistics.
After taking eight months of driving lessons for heavy vehicles, she was eventually issued a public service vehicle license, which allows her to pull trailers as well as drive trucks and tractors. It was the first license of its kind to ever be issued to a Pakistani woman.

'I am able to do this now because of the Islamabad Traffic Police training course,' she said.
While it can be difficult for women to break into male-dominated fields, and many men in the area still firmly believe that a woman's place is in the home, Ms. Akhtar's skill and humility have helped her earn the respect of her colleagues. 
'At first we had doubts, but when she started driving the truck, our minds changed,' one said. 
Another added: 'She behaves well, and treats us like her sons. We treat her as a mother. So that is our relationship.'

However, she still faces some discrimination in the workforce. Recently, she passed a driving test to apply for work on a new bus line in Islamabad - but she was told that, despite her qualifications, they had no plans to hire women.
There are also dangers on the road for a woman, which one of her sons worries about: 'My son tells me not to drive too far, it’s dangerous. But I told him that we have to earn a living. We only eat when we earn.'
Ms. Akhtar continues to plug away, though, and is encouraging other women to strive for equality as well. 
'My message to my fellow women is to try to do something all the time,' she said. 'Don't believe you are weak and can't do anything. We are capable'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3247869/Mother-five-Pakis... 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Pakistan's first female truck driver has a message to the women of her country: "Nothing is too difficult." Shamim Akhtar hopes to be a role model after becoming the first Pakistani woman to get a driving license for heavy vehicles. But in a country where men dominate the roads, the journey to gender equality can be a bumpy one. (Produced by Siraj Zaheer and Stuart Greer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rLPyyp4hCA

#Pakistan’s women-only #universities are 'progressive' spaces. #EducationMatters #genderparity https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/pakistans-women-only-univ... … via @timeshighered

Women’s universities in Pakistan are providing a positive and “progressive” space for female scholars and students, one of the authors of a major UK study of female academic careers has said.

The existence of women-only universities has divided Pakistan’s academy since the first such institution was established in 1998, with critics claiming they pander to religious extremists and help to entrench gender segregation in the Muslim-dominated state.

However, the single-sex institutions have grown significantly in number in recent years. Twenty-two of Pakistan’s 161 universities are open to female students only, although they have both female and male faculty.

Victoria Showunmi, lecturer in education at the UCL Institute of Education, said she was impressed by the positive environment she found at the institutions she visited during a three-year British Academy-funded project on the academic careers of female staff.

The study, carried out with University of Leicester education academics Saeeda Shah and David Pedder, interviewed 40 female academics at both mixed-sex and women-only universities in Pakistan. In addition, almost 500 women responded to a questionnaire on challenges to career advancement.

In light of Dr Showunmi’s visits and the responses to the project, the UCL academic concluded that Pakistan’s single-sex institutions were overwhelmingly positive for both academics and students.

Describing her visit to Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi, she said the institution “never came across as anything but a progressive space”.

“There were stories of some leaders holding some people back [for promotion], but it was the same type of story that we hear in the UK,” said Dr Showunmi, who presented the results of the project at the British Educational Research Association’s annual conference in Leeds last month.

“I am, of course, looking at it through my own lens as a black female UK academic, but it came across as a very good place for women academics to progress,” she added.

Dr Showunmi said the study, which involved annual visits to universities in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Islamabad between 2012 and 2015, as well as reciprocal visits to the UK by Pakistani academics, had shattered many of her preconceptions about female academics in Pakistan, who, she said, were very keen to travel abroad as well as gain advancement in their own country.

“Many of them aspired to do or had done two or three years in a different country, often sponsored by their government,” said Dr Showunmi, adding: “How many female academics in the UK go abroad for their PhD?”

Many of the barriers to academic promotion raised by women were also flagged by men, such as the lack of an embedded research culture and excessive teaching loads, the study found.

Women did face specific challenges, such as male-dominated leadership groups and family responsibilities, although these could also be cited by UK academics, Dr Showunmi said.

“It was refreshing to hear the conversations, as we could have been listening to academics in the UCL staff room,” she explained.

“There was a different religious context, but many were the same issues of work-life balance or difficulties in trying to access resources faced by [female] academics in the UK," she added.

#Pakistan's female #cricket star Sana Mir is blazing a trail — but there's still a lot of work to do http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-10-21/pakistans-female-cricket-star... … #womenslives

by Caroline Beeler

I’m an American — and the only thing I knew about cricket until about a week ago was that they take a break for tea in the middle of the match.

So when the most famous woman in Pakistani sports agreed to show me how to throw (or bowl, actually) a cricket ball — it was a little embarrassing. 

Evidently, I bend my elbow a bit too much, Sana Mir tells me.

Mir is the captain of the Pakistani women’s cricket team and at age 30, she's already a veteran. She hands me back the ball — it’s like a small baseball.
“Just keep this elbow straight, and bring this hand as straight as possible," Mir says. "Better! Yeah?”

We’re at the Lahore Country Club. Behind us, pitchers are running toward batters and hurling the ball overhand at them.

The batters knock them away with big, flat wooden bats.

“When I started off, there were hardly any girls playing cricket, so it was on the streets with my bigger brother ... where I learned,” she adds.

Mir’s father was in the army, so they moved a lot. And every time they did, she had to prove herself again to the neighborhood boys.

“All those tests that I had to give, in every city and every team, show that I have got cricket in me," she says. "[It] made my belief stronger that I am better at cricket than many other things."

And in Pakistan, that means something. The sport is huge here. Imagine the popularity of football, baseball and basketball all rolled into one, and you’ve got cricket. 

In 2003, Mir gave up a spot at an engineering university to pursue cricket full time. She got a push from her father.

“He said that we have got a lot of female engineers, we don’t have a lot of female cricketers,” Mir recalls.

Since choosing sports over academics, Mir has helped build up Pakistan’s first professional women’s cricket team. As captain, she’s led the team to wins in big international tournaments and against neighbor and longtime rival, India. 

Up-and-coming bowler Maham Tariq attributes a lot of the team's success to Mir’s leadership.

“I have no words to express — she’s so amazing," Tariq says. "In fact, on the field and off the field, her attitude, she’s so always motivated. Playing under her captaincy, I think I can’t ask for more.”

But Mir says she’s most proud of how her team’s performance has affected the country off the field. 

"There are two kinds of perceptions we have been able to change. One is that Pakistani women can’t play cricket, or any sports. This was the perception we changed inside Pakistan," she says. "Outside Pakistan, a lot of people thought that women are not allowed to do stuff in Pakistan. So that is another perception that we have been very proudly able to change. 

Even though it’s getting more acceptable for women to play cricket, it’s still not exactly easy.

There are no dedicated fields for women. They don’t have the same cricket clubs as men. Women’s participation in all sports is low here — no Pakistani woman has ever won a medal at the Olympics.

Mir says supportive families who encourage pushing boundaries are key to moving toward gender equality.

“These girls are here not because these girls wanted to change something, but their families, their fathers, their brothers, their parents, their mothers wanted to change. So this is something that’s really encouraging for me to see,” she adds.

How a teen #Saudi girl singer found her voice and her freedom in #Pakistan. #Music http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-10-28/how-saudi-singer-found-her-vo... … #womenslives

She moved from her home in Saudi Arabia to Pakistan six years ago to study computer engineering. For Yaqub, it meant freedom from Saudi Arabia’s stricter Islamic laws.

And it’s in Lahore where she started singing — in public — at her university.

At just age 19, Yaqub was discovered by music producer and mentor Xulfi — imagine Simon Cowell, except nicer. She started as a backing vocalist for Xulfi’s television music series, "Nescafé Basement."

Then she started recording her own music.

“I knew that I could sing, but I never thought I’d be taking it forward as a career because I’ve come from a very conservative place. It’s been frowned upon, being in showbiz,” Yaqub explains.

Working on one of the country’s most popular TV shows got her exposure.

And doing a cover from her favorite band helped her move from backup singer to headliner.

Her stunning version of Coldplay’s hit, “The Scientist,” has been streamed tens of thousands of times.

“I really, really admire Coldplay. It’s one of my most favorite bands," says Yaqub. "They really inspire me because, if you listen to their very first album, it’s original. It’s all them. You can feel that there is nothing in there that’s composed to please people so much, and that’s the reason I like it so much.”

But Yaqub says she is done with covers. She’s writing her own music. Her new EP is called "Échapper" — the French word for "escape."

She says the inspiration came from her desire to escape when her family put pressure on her to move back to Saudi Arabia after she finished her degree in computer engineering.

She was desperate to stay in Pakistan.

“I knew that I wouldn’t be able to pursue my music in Saudi Arabia, and I wouldn’t be able to live as freely as and independently as I do in Pakistan. So that was the inspiration behind the EP — because I just wanted to escape that prison-like feeling.”

She was able to convince her parents to let her stay in Pakistan and pursue music.

She spends her days working for a Pakistani music streaming site. The rest of her time is spent writing and recording music in her cozy apartment above a pizza place.

But split between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, Yaqub says that she feels like she has two lives.

“I know that in Pakistan I’m just myself. I’m just who I want to be. But I know that in Saudi Arabia, I’m what my parents expect me to be, what my parent’s friends expect me to be or my relatives want me to be. So in that sense, Pakistan is a place where I can be myself,” she explains.

She is quick to add that her parents are supportive. And that her dad approves and encourages her.

"I’ve asked [my dad] a million times, 'Do you want me to stop? If you tell me to stop I’m going to stop.' And he says, 'No I don’t want you to stop, I just want you to be happy and do what you want to do,'" Yaqub says.

And, at least for now, Pakistan is where she’s happy.