#Pakistan army fights tribal zone insurgency with needles and thread. #FATA #Taliban #skills http://www.thenational.ae/world/south-asia/pakistan-army-fights-tri... … via @TheNationalUAE

MIRANSHAH, NORTH WAZIRISTAN // Major General Hassan Azhar Hayat makes an unlikely trailblazer for women’s liberation.

A battled-hardened commander in the Pakistani army, he has spent the last eight years in the rugged tribal zone of North Waziristan, a notorious stronghold of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

From his base in the main town of Miranshah, he speaks about how more than 800 of his men have died in the two-year operation to bring peace to the region.


But as he hops into his car for a guided tour around town, his war-weary tone lightens up as he talks about his new counter-insurgency tactic. It doesn’t involve guns or tanks, but needles, thread and mixing bowls. And the opening salvo will take place at a newly-built school, which will soon be running embroidery and cooking classes.

"We’re hoping to get women to enrol so that they can go on to set up their own boutiques and maybe even cafes," beams Gen Hassan. "Women didn’t used to run businesses in this part of the world – we’re trying to change that."


Whether any local menfolk will try to enrol in the classes remains to be seen. Gun-loving and religiously conservative, North Waziristan’s tribesmen are not known for their interest in sewing, much less for sharing classrooms with women.

All that, though, may now be about to change.

For by introducing these remote corners of Pakistan to the values of the 21st century, the army hopes to challenge the very culture that gave the militants a foothold in the first place.


North Waziristan, a region of jagged, lunar mountains on the Afghan border, is a case in point. It lies in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas – or Fata, the government’s acronym for the vast chunk of north-west Pakistan that has never submitted to their rule, or anyone else’s.

The origins of the Fata stretch back to the 19th century, when even the British Empire found the local Pashtun tribes too fierce to control. Ever since, they have been largely self-governing, with tribal jirgas, or courts, replacing the law of the land.


But when Taliban and Al Qaeda militants flooded over the Afghan border after the US-led invasion in 2001, that hands-off approach helped North Waziristan become a terrorist safe haven. Not only did locals respect the militants’ piety and fighting prowess, their ancient tribal hospitality code forbade them to hand them over to anyone else.

----
"In the old days, this town was 50 per cent dependent on smuggling and 20 per cent dependent on terror," says Gen Hassan. "People would rent their houses to the jihadists, who’d pay well in dollars from their foreign backers. We want to get people back to humanity again, by making them useful members of society."


Thousands of families suspected of harbouring extremists are also being put through deradicalisation programmes, where religious scholars teach "the true meaning of Islam".

Most #McDonald's Restaurants in #India's Capital #NewDelhi Closed Until Further Notice http://cnnmon.ie/2slq93d via @CNNMoney

Finding Chicken McNuggets in New Delhi just got a whole lot tougher.
Most McDonald's (MCD) restaurants in India's capital city were shut on Thursday because their operating licenses have expired.
Connaught Place Restaurants Private Limited (CPRL), the fast-food chain's licensee in northern and eastern India, took the decision to close 41 of its 53 resturants.
The Indian partner is "working to obtain the required licenses," McDonald's Asia spokesperson Barry Shum said in an emailed statement. "India continues to be an important market for McDonald's and we are committed to working with CPRL to resolve the issue as soon as possible," he added.

News of the restaurant closure was first reported by the Economic Times newspaper, which said around 1,700 employees would lose their jobs in the process.
Shum dismissed those claims as "erroneous," saying McDonald's was told employees will be kept on and paid their regular salary even while the stores are closed. CPRL did not respond to requests for comment.

McDonald's currently has more than 400 franchises across 65 Indian cities, and the country's burgeoning middle class presents an opportunity to grow further in Asia, particularly after the firm sold most of its business in China earlier this year.
But for now, most of the Delhi stores listed on the fast food giant's online store locator in India have a big red label that reads "temporarily closed."

Pakistan's First Female Police Chief Breaking Cultural Taboos in Peshawar

https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistans-first-female-police-chief-break...

Rizwana Hameed made history a month ago when she became the first female head of a male police station in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, or KPK, where conservative cultural and religious traditions often discourage women from leaving home.

Hameed has been a member of the provincial police force for the past 15 years and has participated in numerous crime investigations as well as daring raids against suspected criminal terrorist hideouts.

But after becoming the first officer to supervise a male police station in a predominantly conservative male society, she is feeling the pressure.

Tough job

"It’s a very difficult job for me," she said.

But Hameed is enjoying the job and is determined to undo the impression women are a lesser creed.

“If men are asked to take on household responsibilities and babysitting, for the whole day I don't think they can handle them. Whereas women can easily handle professional responsibilities outside the home also,” she said.

The police officer says women in the surrounding localities have been until now reluctant to enter the police station with their complaints and discuss them openly with male police officers.

“Peshawar is a closed society where women mostly confined to their homes. And even if they are subjected to domestic violence they endure it and avoid publicly talking about it," she said. "But my presence here is now encouraging them to bring problems to the police station and their number is growing by the day. And when their problems are solved they take back a message of satisfaction to their communities, which is emboldening other women to visit the police station."

Tradition

Pashtun families in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have been traditionally reluctant to allow their women to join the police. That is why there are hardly 10 percent women police personnel in the entire province. But officials say the trend is changing because of projections in media of women police officers..

“Even some of our female complainants also ask me after their issues are addressed whether they can join the police and I sit down with them to explain the process,” Hameed said.

Police station chiefs in Pakistan, she says, have to spend most of the time in the office, so the doors are open for complainants all the time, making family life a bit difficult even for men officers.

"But my husband and my in-laws are very cooperative with me, even though they know I am not spending enough time with them after assuming my responsibilities as the SHO," Hameed said. "I try to manage both and stay in contact with the family via cell phone because they still need my supervision in some areas."

The provincial police department is also conducting awareness campaigns in woman educational institutions to encourage them to join the force. Hameed said she believes the induction of more women will help bring down incidents of domestic violence and so-called family-honor related crimes against women in the province.

Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has been at the forefront of the country’s war against terrorism and extremism and has borne the brunt of violent attacks. However, security conditions have improved, encouraging women to look for jobs in areas traditionally considered only for men.

In #Pakistan's #coal rush, some #women drivers break cultural barriers. #Hindu #Thar #energy #Sindh

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-women-drivers/in-pakista...

Gulaban, a 25-year old mother of three, adjusts a fan before driving a 60-tonne truck, during a training session of the Female Dump Truck Driver Programme, introduced by the Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), in Islamkot, Tharparkar, Pakistan September 21, 2017. Picture taken September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

As Pakistan bets on cheap coal in the Thar desert to resolve its energy crisis, a select group of women is eyeing a road out of poverty by snapping up truck-driving jobs that once only went to men.

Such work is seen as life-changing in this dusty southern region bordering India, where sand dunes cover estimated coal reserves of 175 billion tonnes and yellow dumper trucks swarm like bees around Pakistan’s largest open-pit mine.

The imposing 60-tonne trucks initially daunted Gulaban, 25, a housewife and mother of three from Thar’s Hindu community inside the staunchly conservative and mainly-Muslim nation of 208 million people.

“At the beginning I was a bit nervous but now it’s normal to drive this dumper,” said Gulaban, clad in a pink saree, a traditional cloth worn by Hindu women across South Asia.

Gulaban - who hopes such jobs can help empower other women facing grim employment prospects - is among 30 women being trained to be truck drivers by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), a Pakistani firm digging up low-grade coal under the rolling Thar sand dunes.

Gulaban has stolen the march on her fellow trainees because she was the only woman who knew how to drive a car before training to be a truck driver. She is an inspiration to her fellow students.

“If Gulaban can drive a dump truck then why not we? All we need to do is learn and drive quickly like her,” said Ramu, 29, a mother of six, standing beside the 40-tonne truck. 

Until recently, energy experts were uncertain that Pakistan’s abundant but poor-quality coal could be used to fire up power plants.

That view began to change with new technology and Chinese investment as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a key branch of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative to connect Asia with Europe and Africa.

Now coal, along with hydro and liquefied natural gas, is at the heart of Pakistan’s energy plans.

SECMC, which has about 125 dump trucks ferrying earth out of the pit mine, estimates it will need 300-400 trucks once they burrow deep enough to reach the coal.


Drivers can earn up to 40,000 rupees ($380) a month.

Women aspiring to these jobs are overcoming cultural barriers in a society where women are restricted to mainly working the fields and cooking and cleaning for the family. Only this week in Saudi Arabia, a close ally of Pakistan, women were granted permission to drive for the first time ever, ending a ban that was supported by conservative clerics but seen by rights activists as an emblem of suppression.

Gulaban’s husband, Harjilal, recalled how people in Thar would taunt him when his “illiterate” wife drove their small car.

elan | Shattering the Glass Ceiling: 11 #Pakistani #Female CEOs Who Are Defying Odds. #Pakistan #gendergap

http://www.elanthemag.com/shattering-glass-ceiling-11-pakistani-fem...

Sima Kamil, President of United Bank Limited (UBL):

In March 2017, United Bank Limited (UBL) announced the appointment of its first female CEO Ms. Sima Kamil. She promptly took charge of overseeing operations in over 1200 chains including the largest Islamic banking wing in Pakistan.

Her previous appointment as the head of another major banking network in Pakistan, HBL, had ensured her experience in managing operations in the bank’s Retail, SME and Rural Banking wing in over 1700 chains all over Pakistan.

Roshaneh Zafar, Managing Director, Kashf Foundation:

Ms. Zafar hails from a family of philanthropists, so it comes as no surprise when she ventured into launching her own microfinance organization along with a team of four other women. She received her first start up loan in 1996 and has since supported over 500,000 women and their families through her organization.


Ms. Zafar has also been awarded the ‘Tamgha-e-Imtiaz’ one of Pakistan’s highest civilian awards and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

Maheen Rahman, Chief Executive of Alfalah GHP Investment Management:

Recognized by Bloomberg as ‘Pakistan’s Most Amazing Money Manager’, Maheen Rahman stands as the youngest and the only female CEO of an asset management company. Her appointment in 2015 guaranteed the overseeing of $180 million worth of assets in stocks and bonds, according to Bloomberg.

Following her appointment, Rahman has been able to double the assets since taking charge and has singlehandedly increased Alfalah Investments’ growth by 45% earning her a place in Forbes’ ‘Top 40 under 40’ list of Female Executives.

Sheba Najmi, founder ‘Tech for Change’:

Ms. Najmi launched her own non-profit organization ‘Tech for Change’ to help entrepreneurs, developers and designers combat Pakistan’s civic problems.

She has previously worked as a lead designer for Yahoo Mail and has since then launched a number of initiatives including Pakistan’s first civic ‘Hackathon’ in major cities and the Civic Innovation Labs that provide technology initiatives for women.

She was also a Code for America fellow and has since replicated the design in Pakistan providing fellowship opportunities to rural provinces of the country.

Kalsoom Lakhani, CEO Invest2Innovate (I2I):

Ms. Lakhani launched the startup in 2011 as a platform for training aspiring entrepreneurs in Pakistan. I2I trains entrepreneurs and facilitates them with potential investors in stabilizing their businesses.


Maria Umer, founder, Women’s Digital League:

After being laid off from work for demanding a maternity leave, Maria Umer set out to create her own career in a content creating business.

She used an online forum to generate clients and started connecting writers with potential clients.

She eventually founded ‘The Women’s Digital League’ that uses social media to provide digital solutions to corporate clients. 

Saba Gul, CEO Popinjay:

With a Masters degree from MIT in Computer Sciences and Economics, Ms. Gul founded a non-profit organization, Popinjay to help girls from rural backgrounds acquire quality education.

Her organization provides them with linguistic development like English and Urdu along with skill development in Mathematics and entrepreneurial strategies. She has ventured into facilitating them with technical assistance in designing handbags and projects to be marketed to the masses.

Sultana Siddiqui, President, HUM Television Network:

Ms. Siddiqui is the first woman to own her own television network in Pakistan. She started her career in the 70s as a Television Producer for Pakistan Television Network and has since brought on prominent talent for the entertainment industry.

In 1996 she launched her own production house ‘Moomal Productions’ and in 2005 created a Eye Television Network which was later renamed to Hum Television Network in 2011.

#Pakistan’s girl cadets in the military dream of taking power. #Women

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1216856/world

At a revolutionary school in Pakistan, Durkhanay Banuri dreams of becoming military chief, once a mission impossible for girls in a patriarchal country where the powerful army has a severe problem with gender equity.
Thirteen-year-old Durkhanay, a student at Pakistan’s first ever Girls’ Cadet College, established earlier this year in the deeply conservative northwest, brims with enthusiasm and confidence as she sketches out her life plan.
“I want to be the army chief,” she tells AFP. “Why not? When a woman can be prime minister, foreign minister and governor of the State Bank, she can also be chief of the army staff ... I will make it possible and you will see.”
The dreams of many women in the region were once limited to merely leaving the house.
Durkhanay and her 70 classmates in Mardan, a town in militancy-hit Khyber Pakthunkhwa (KP) province roughly 110 kilometers (70 miles) from Islamabad, are aiming much higher.
Cadet colleges in Pakistan, which are run by the government with officers from the military’s education branch, strive to prepare bright male students for the armed forces and civil services.
Their graduates are usually given preference for selection to the army, which in Pakistan can mean their future is secured: they are likely to be granted land and will benefit from the best resources and training in the country.
As a result such colleges play an outsized role in Pakistan’s education system, which has been woefully underfunded for decades.
According to a 2016 government study, a staggering 24 million Pakistani children are out of school, with a larger share of girls staying home than boys — 12.8 million compared to 11.2 million.
Hundreds of boys study at the cadet colleges across the country.
But girls are still not allowed in these elite schools, with the special college at Mardan the one exception.
“Such colleges can help girls qualify to be part of the armed forces, foreign service, civil services or become engineers and doctors,” said retired Brig. Naureen Satti, underscoring their importance in the long fight for equality by Pakistan’s women.
In starched khaki uniforms and red berets Durkhanay and her classmates march the parade ground, stepping to the beat of a barking drill instructor, before racing to change into physical training and martial arts kits.
The military is widely seen as Pakistan’s most powerful institution, and has ruled the country for roughly half of its 70-year history. Under the current civilian government it is believed to control defense and foreign policy.
Women, however, have largely been shut out — par for the course in a country routinely ranked among the world’s most misogynistic, and where they have fought for their rights for decades.
Previously they were only allowed to serve in administrative posts. But military dictator Pervez Musharraf opened up the combat branches of the army, navy and air force to women beginning in 2003.
The military would not disclose how many of its members, which a 2015 Credit Suisse report said number more than 700,000 active personnel, are currently women.
But a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that at least 4,000 are now believed to be serving in the armed forces.
He gave no further details, and it is unclear how far the women have managed to foray from their administrative past, though some have managed to become high profile role models — including, notably, Ayesha Farooq, who in 2013 became Pakistan’s first ever female fighter pilot.
The Girls’ Cadet College principal, retired brigadier Javid Sarwar, vowed his students would be prepared for whatever they wanted to do, “including the armed forces.”

An Excerpt of Oprah Winfrey's Speech at the Golden Globes

The actor and entrepreneur spoke about the #MeToo movement while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2018 Golden Globes.

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/01/full-tran...

it’s not just a story affecting the entertainment industry. It’s one that transcends any culture, geography, race, religion, politics, or workplace. So I want tonight to express gratitude to all the women who have endured years of abuse and assault because they, like my mother, had children to feed and bills to pay and dreams to pursue. They’re the women whose names we’ll never know. They are domestic workers and farm workers. They are working in factories and they work in restaurants and they’re in academia and engineering and medicine and science. They’re part of the world of tech and politics and business. They’re our athletes in the Olympics and they’re our soldiers in the military.

Why the new global wealth of educated women spurs backlash

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-the-new-global-wealth-of-educ...

The spread of education across developing nations is transforming global inequalities and playing a key role in closing the gender gap. Economics correspondent Paul Solman sits down with economist Surjit Bhalla and sociologist Ravinder Kaur to discuss Bhalla’s book, “The New Wealth of Nations,” as well as the backlash to increasing equality.


Paul Solman:

Indian economist Surjit Bhalla and his wife, sociologist Ravinder Kaur, in the U.S. recently to spread the message of “The New Wealth of Nations.”

Surjit Bhalla:

The key thesis of the book is that education and the spread of education has transformed the world and has transformed relationships, inequalities between countries and, finally and most importantly, between the sexes.

Paul Solman:

And the cost? What’s the cost?

Surjit Bhalla:

The cost is that people in the West are going to lose out relative to the people in the East, the East meaning the rest of the world, the West meaning the advanced countries.

What happens, when the world is filled with everybody graduating from high school, then the Western people will lose their advantage over the rest of the world.

Paul Solman:

And so that’s why the person with a high school diploma in the United States has seen her or his, usually his, earnings…

Surjit Bhalla:

Decline, yes, in real terms, by something like 10 percent or 15 percent over the last 25 years. The real wage of those who went to college, but didn’t graduate has stayed the same. And the real wage of college graduates, the creme de la creme, has risen by only 0.5 percent per annum.

Paul Solman:

But it’s not the creme de la creme anymore, because you can go beyond college.

Surjit Bhalla:

Well, no, this includes beyond graduate. Whether it’s doctors or it’s lawyers, everything is transferable now.

Even surgery can be done transatlantic by the use of technology. Where is the real advantage left for an American or a British or German or Western professional?

Paul Solman:

Isn’t that why there’s a reaction against immigration?

Ravinder Kaur:

Yes.

You know, there’s always a scapegoat when things are not going well for you. And it always tends to be somebody we think of as the other. You know, it could be a person of a different color. It could be a person of different religious persuasion.

Surjit Bhalla:

Different sex.

Ravinder Kaur:

Of different sex or whatever. So, today, maybe men are resentful of women.

Surjit Bhalla:

Previously, there were always the bottom 20 percent who lost out, but they could come home and feel superior to or dominate their wives.

Now they come home, and the women are the major breadwinners, or are more educated than them, or more able than them.

Paul Solman:

Or at least are competing with them.

Surjit Bhalla:

Or competing. From where they were here, now they’re equals. That can mess up the psychology of men.

Ravinder Kaur:

I think it is a threatened masculinity issue. Why do you see more, you know, such crime in places where the gender gap is closing?

Paul Solman:

According to the World Health Organization, for example, violence against women surged in both Nicaragua and Uganda following public information campaigns promoting women’s rights.

And then there’s the so-called Nordic paradox. Though Iceland Norway, Finland and Sweden take the World Economic Forum’s global index of gender equality — the U.S. ranks 49th — they are also among the worst in Europe for domestic violence and sexual assault.

Ravinder Kaur:

So, for quite some time, my argument has been that if you see more violence and if you see more gender crime, it’s a backlash. How dare this woman be in the public space, and you know how dare she aspire…

Surjit Bhalla:

Be equal.

Justice Tahira Safdar nominated as first female chief justice in #Balochistan or anywhere else in #Pakistan. #judiciary #gender https://tribune.com.pk/story/1764871/1-justice-tahira-safdar-nomina...

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar on Monday nominated Justice Syeda Tahira Safdar as the Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court (BHC), paving way for her to become the first female chief justice of any court in the country.

“Madam Tahira Safdar will be the next chief justice of BHC,” he announced at Justice Safdar’s book launch in Lahore, where he was invited as the chief guest.

Speaking on the occasion, Justice Nisar said that he will never even let a scratch come to the institution, referring to the matter of Justice Siddiqui’s fiery speech against state institutions.
“Unfortunately, a few forces are trying to undermine and weaken the judiciary, I will never let that happen,” he remarked. “As long as the Supreme Court exists, no threats against democracy will succeed.”

BHC’s incumbent Chief Justice Muhammad Noor Meskanzai is scheduled to retire on September 1 this year. He was sworn in on December 26, 2014 after Justice Qazi Faez Isa was elevated as a Supreme Court judge.


Justice Tahira Safdar will work as the chief justice of the BHC till October 5 next year. Justice Tahira Safdar is part of the special court, hearing the high treason case against former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.

Interestingly, Justice Safdar was the first woman to be appointed as a civil judge in Balochistan, besides having the distinction of being the first lady to be appointed in all posts she served. She was also the first female high court judge.

According to her profile on BHC’s website, Justice Safdar is the daughter of Syed Imtiaz Hussain Baqri Hanafi, a renowned lawyer.

She was born on October 5, 1957, at Quetta. She received her basic education from the Cantonment Public School, Quetta, and finished her bachelors’ degree from the Government Girls College, Quetta. Justice Syeda Tahira Safdar did her Masters in Urdu Literature from the University of Balochistan, and completed her degree in law from the University Law College, Quetta, in 1980.

#Pakistan's first woman ambassador to #Iran takes charge in #Tehran

https://nation.com.pk/07-Aug-2018/pakistan-s-first-woman-envoy-to-i...

Ambassador Riffat Masood on Tuesday presented her credentials to Iran’s Foreign Minister Jawad Zareef, becoming the country’s first woman envoy to Iran.

Riffat Masood is a career diplomat with wide experience of diplomacy and having fluency in Persian language.

She also had various diplomatic assignments in the country’s missions in Norway, United Kingdom, the United States, Turkey and France.

Pulitzer prize-winner Nicholas Kristof accused of '#racist #imperialist logic'. It’s easy to imagine #Trump agreeing with some of his ideas about the inherent vice of certain people from certain countries. #xenophobia #misogyny #Islamophobia @alternet https://www.alternet.org/pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-nicholas...

In Feminist Accountability: Disrupting Violence and Transforming Power (December, NYU Press), Ann Russo, associate professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at DePaul University, offers an intersectional analysis that includes chapters on “Disrupting Whiteness,” “Shifting Paradigms to End Violence,” and “Disentangling US Feminism from US Imperialism.”

In the last section, “Resisting the ‘Savior’ Complex,” Russo recalls how Kristof—in his 2009 book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, written with his wife Sheryl WuDunn—”portray[s] the men from the global south as either inherently brutal and violent, or lazy and irresponsible (both constructions synchronistic with the portrayal of men of color and immigrant men from the global south in the dominant culture of the United States).”

------

“In many poor countries, the problem is not so much individual thugs and rapists but an entire culture of sexual predation,” Kristof asserts. Kristof and WuDunn describe Ethiopia as “where kidnapping and raping girls is a time-honored tradition” and Congo as the “world capital of rape.”

“No doubt the widespread rape and sexual violence against women in the Congo is horrific,” Russo counters, “but [Kristof and WuDunn] explain it as a cultural problem, rather than a social and political [one].” With this myopic focus, they “obscure the role of the United States in fueling this endemic violence and the ongoing instability of the country and thus avoid any consideration of US accountability. For example, [when they discuss the Congo], Kristof and WuDunn do not tell us that our deep dependence on these mineral resources is, in part, what fuels the ongoing conflicts and violence in the region.”

In his win-a-trip contest announcement, Kristof writes that applicants who “don’t look like” him are “welcome.” That may be so. But a pro forma “welcome” can’t erase the impact of the broad strokes with which he has painted whole swaths of people.

This was a problem in 2009. Now, with Trump in the White House, it’s more important than ever to get rid of the myth of the good white liberal savior for once and for all, and stand in opposition to what Russo describes as Kristof’s “ethnocentrist, racist and imperialist logic.”

Best of 2019: A woman farmer shows the way |The Third Pole


https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/12/25/best-of-2019-a-woman-farmer...

https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20eseasia/docs/publ...

Almas Perween may seem diminutive, but a great deal of responsibility rests on her shoulders. She is a farmer, and a trainer of farmers, a big responsibility for a woman from a village whose name is just a number – Chak #224/EB. Her farm is about 100 kilometres from the historic city of Multan, in the Vehari district of Pakistan’s Punjab province. In many ways Perween epitomises this year’s International Women’s Day’s theme of “Think Equal, Build Smart, Innovate for Change”, putting innovation by women and girls, for women and girls, at the heart of efforts to achieve gender equality.

Challenging gender roles

“Why is cotton-picking always a woman’s job?” was the first thing I heard her say. The question carried within it the challenge to traditional gender roles. While Perween is happy to take on the mantle of what is traditionally seen as men’s work, her question took this further, asking why men cannot do what is traditionally done by women.

It has long been said that the soft, fluffy staple fibre of cotton that grows in a boll can only be picked by women’s dainty hands. Perween refused to accept this, claiming it was “just an excuse not to work”.

“It’s literally back-breaking work and takes a heavy health toll on the women,” she said. Drawing from her experience, she added, “village women work longer hours in a day than men”.

Her experience is borne out by research done elsewhere. A 2018 report on the status of rural women in Pakistan said agricultural work has undergone “feminization” employing nearly 7.2 million rural women, and becoming the largest employer of Pakistani women workers. Yet their multidimensional work with “lines between work for economic gain and work as extension of household chores (livestock management) and on the family farm” are blurred and “does not get captured”.
The report pointed out that for women in the agricultural sector (primarily concentrated in dairy and livestock) the “returns to labour are low: only 40% are in paid employment and 60% work as unpaid workers on family farms and enterprises. Their unpaid work is valued (using comparative median wages) at PKR 683 billion (USD 5.5 billion), is 57% of all work done by women, and is 2.6% of GDP of the country.”

Cotton is one of the many crops grown on Perween’s fields. She manages 23 acres of farmland (of which eight acres belong to her mother). With her brother – three years her senior – the family grows maize, wheat, sugarcane and cotton.

-----------------
Despite the success, it has not always been easy for Perween to take the risks she has. She has been lucky to have the full backing of her family. It is not just her brother’s trust, but also her father’s firm support in the face of criticism from both villagers and the wider family, that has helped her find her own path.

“It has not been easy,” she said, “but it is not impossible either,” Perween says, with a note of triumph in her voice.

RURAL WOMEN IN PAKISTAN  S t a t u s  Re p o rt  2 0 1 8

Feminization of Agriculture in Pakistan:

https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20eseasia/docs/publ...

Agriculture is the largest employer of Pakistani women workers. The status of rural women with respect to work highlights significant aspects of women’s rights and wellbeing: agricultural work is undergoing feminization; women’s work remains largely unrecognized, unpaid or underpaid; women’s work in agriculture is mostly out of need and often without choice; law, policy and activism need to address the rights and wellbeing of women agricultural workers. The study has mapped out the opportunities and obstacles rural women encounter, linked the findings with Pakistan’s commitments to the SDGs.

--------------------

Throughout the world, women play a very important role in agricultural sector – on average women in developing countries contribute to 43 per cent of the labour force - and in SouthAsia and Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture is the single most important employment source for women (FAO, 2011).

---------------

The transformation of agriculture in the last few decades has been gendered leading to what has been termed as ‘feminization of agriculture’. National level statistics in developing countries show that there has been an increase in female involvement in agriculture accompanied by a steady decline in men’s participation in the sector (Deere, 2005; de Schutter, 2013; Slavchevska et. al, 2016). There are several factors behind this pattern including male outmigration, increase in commercialization of agriculture, pandemic diseases that disproportionately affect more men (like HIV), conflict, climate change and technological innovations (Slavchevska et. al, 2016).

--------------------

the feminization of Pakistan’s agricultural workforce was happening due to a number of trends. There has been a general decline in the proportion of men who work in agriculture. First, this is likely to be due to male outmigration to urban areas, as well as men taking up work in the growing off-farm rural economy. Second, the proportion of women who report working in agriculture has been steadily rising. Third, the proportion of women workers in agriculture has declined somewhat in the augmented workforce. These trends suggest that while agriculture is becoming a less important source of livelihood for men and women alike, there is a move of male workers to non-agricultural sectors, while there may be some shift of women agricultural workers from household-based agricultural activities to the labour market.

--------

Women are largely excluded from the ownership and control of land in Pakistan. This exclusion is the result of several policy and social norms, affecting women’s agency in multiple ways. Unequal access and control of property is the most severe form of inequality as it exacerbates other types of inequalities as well. Without secure access to land and means of production, the cycle of deprivation fuels a downward spiral of poverty, and the feminization of rural poverty.

The number of women working outside the home and earning a wage is growing at twice the rate of population growth in Pakistan. That means Pakistani businesses may finally stop ignoring women's basic needs... like comfortable, affordable undergarments.

https://twitter.com/FarooqTirmizi/status/1318051646623109123?s=20

The data on Pakistani women’s rising economic power is staggering. The female labour force participation rate rose from under 16% in 1998 to a peak of 25% in 2015 before declining slightly once again to 22.8% by 2018. That means there are millions of women who are currently working who might not have been, had labour force participation rates for women stayed the same.

https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/10/17/so-you-want-to-buy-a...

The total number of women in Pakistan’s labour force – earning a wage outside the home – rose from just 8.2 million women in 1998 to an estimated 23.7 million by 2020, according to Profit’s analysis of data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. That represents an average increase of 4.9% per year compared to an average of just a 2.4% per year increase in the total population. In short, the growth in the number of women entering the labour force is more than twice as high as the total rate of population increase.

All of those women now in the workforce have more purchasing power than ever before. Women have always had some measure of purchasing discretion for their households. But now, with their own incomes, they have more ability than ever before to make discretionary purchases for themselves, rather than just making decisions for their households. That includes buying more comfortable undergarments.

Enabling more Pakistani women to work
UZMA QURESH|MAY 07, 2019

https://blogs.worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/enabling-more-pak...


There is a broad consensus that no country can progress without the full participation of women in public life .

Most of the positive attributes associated with development – rising productivity, growing personal freedom and mobility, and innovation – require increasing the participation of excluded groups.

Pakistan stands near the bottom of women’s participation in the workforce. This lack of participation is at the root of many of the demographic and economic constraints that Pakistan faces.

It is in that context that the World Bank, in its Pakistan@100 initiative, has identified inclusive growth as one of the key factors to the country’s successful transition to an upper-middle income country by 2047.

Pakistan’s inclusive growth targets require women’s participation in the workforce to rise from a current 26 percent to 45 percent .

Women’s participation rate has almost doubled in 22 years (1992-2014) but the increase isn’t happening fast enough and with much of our population in the youth category, we need to rapidly take measures to address gaps in women’s work status to achieve our goal.

Focus should be on the following priority areas:

Increase access to education, reproductive health services: Half of Pakistani women have not attended school. Presently only 10 percent of women have post-secondary education whereas their chances of working for pay increase three-fold with post-secondary education compared to women with primary education. More educated women are also more likely to get better quality jobs.

Pakistan also couldn’t meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) target of reducing maternal mortality ratio to 150. The government must implement anti early age marriage laws and invest in transforming behaviors of parents and society on such practices. This will allow girls to have more years of education and have better reproductive health outcomes. Fertility decline related behavioral change efforts are also critical in addition to improved service delivery to enable women to have healthier lives and find better economic opportunities .

Unpaid Care Work and informal economy: Women are 10 times more involved in household chores, child and elderly care than men in Pakistan. This leads to women being more time poor and having less time to spend in gaining skills and getting jobs.

Social norms also do not support women’s involvement in economic activity outside their homes and this forces them to either fall back in the informal sector (women are heavily concentrated in it) and rely upon unskilled or low skilled jobs (mostly home-based) or to simply not participate in the wider economy. Adoption and effective implementation of home-based and domestic workers laws can address informal economy issues of extremely low wages and lack of access to social security.

The burden of unpaid care work with high fertility rate is in many ways at the root of all of these problems because more children result in more unpaid care work and it also means that women will be in poorer health conditions especially in lower and middle-income levels rendering them unable to acquire the skills needed for gainful employment opportunities.

While recognizing women’s overwhelming engagement in unpaid care work, private and public sector must contribute to reducing the burden by for example investing in daycare centers and adequate maternity and paternity leaves. As part of a wider behavioral transformation process, men in the family need to start sharing unpaid care work with women.


Safer public spaces: Less than half of women surveyed in a 2013 study reported that they feel safe while walking around in their neighborhoods and such women are also more likely to work than women who do not feel safe. Effective implementation of laws on sexual harassment and violence against women will encourage more women to engage in economic activity outside their homes.

Women Left Behind: India’s Falling Female Labor Participation
India’s female labor force participation is the lowest in South Asia.

https://thediplomat.com/2020/07/women-left-behind-indias-falling-fe...

While labor force participation is declining globally on average, women’s participation has increased in high-income countries that have instituted gender-focused policies like parental leave, subsidized childcare, and increased job flexibility. On the Global Gender Gap Index by the World Economic Forum (WEF), India has fallen four places from 2018, now ranking 112 of 153 countries, largely due to its economic gender gap. In less than 15 years, India has fallen 39 places on the WEF’s economic gender gap, from 110th in 2006 to 149th in 2020. Among its South Asian neighbors, India now has the lowest female labor force participation, falling behind Pakistan and Afghanistan, which had half of India’s FLFP in 1990.

'Pawri girl': A five-second video brings #India and #Pakistan together. Girl from #Peshawar pokes fun at #Pakistani "burgers": "ye humari pawri hori hai"

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56107941


A five-second video has done the impossible - brought social media users in India and Pakistan together.

When Pakistani video creator Dananeer Mobin uploaded the video on her Instagram page on 6 February, little did she know that she would become an overnight internet star in both nations.

So you may ask, what's so special about the video? But before we tell you, you must watch the original video:

On the face of it, there is nothing special about it. She says: "This is our car, this is us, and this is our party". The video shows a bunch of young people enjoying themselves.

And that is where the answer lies. When the news has been mostly about death and despair recently, the happy faces in the video cheered people up in the two countries - who are usually at odds on most things because of the decades of sometimes deadly animosity between the two nations.

"What could be better than sharing love across the border at a time when there is so much trouble and so much division around the world," she told BBC Urdu.

"I'm glad my neighbours and I are partying together now because of my video," she says, referring to Indians.


Dananeer Mobin, 19, whose Instagram bio says "call me Geena", is a social media influencer from Pakistan's northern city of Peshawar.

Her posts usually centre around fashion and make-up.

In the viral video, she says the line in her native Urdu "Yeh humari car hai, Yeh hum hain, aur yeh humari pawri ho rahi hai" (you already know the translation!), swinging the camera around as she speaks to the viewer.

She uses the English word for "party" but pronounces it "pawrty".

She explains in text below the video that she's poking fun at "burgers", who come to visit the northern mountainous parts of Pakistan on holiday.

Pakistanis use the term "burger" to describe the rich elites who may have studied or worked outside Pakistan and speak with an American or British-tinged accent. The burger was very expensive when it first came to Pakistan, as opposed to the local version - the humble bun kebab.

"It's not my style to talk like this in burger style…. I did it just to make you all (my Instagram followers) laugh," Dananeer says.


She even says in the post that this is meme-worthy content. And she was clearly right.

Far from being offended, Pakistanis starting recreating the short clip and doing what Pakistani Twitter does best: making memes.

It wasn't long before some high-profile actors and cricketers got involved.

The Pakistan Cricket Board shared a video of the Pakistani national team doing their version of the video after winning a series against South Africa.

It also saw an explosion in popularity across the border after an Indian DJ took her phrase "ye humari pawri hori hai" (we are partying) and turned it into a catchy song.

Yashraj Mukhate, who has taken meme-able videos and turned them into songs before, gave a shout out to the "pawri girl @dananeerr".

World Bank: “28 women for every 100 men participate in the labor force in India and Pakistan”. #GenderEquity #SouthAsia #India #Pakistan https://blogs.worldbank.org/impactevaluations/28


28 women for every 100 men participate in the labor force in India and Pakistan — this compares to 64 women for every 100 men globally, and is the lowest in the world outside the middle east. This dismal statistic highlights a key development challenge: what policies can contribute to achieving gender equity in wages and labor force participation?

-------


The good news is that a recent surge of work in South Asia formally documents the mechanisms underpinning low women’s labor force participation in the region, and proposes policy and interventions that can meaningfully reduce these gaps. There are many excellent reviews of the literature (to cite a few: Fletcher et al. (2017) focus on India, Jayachandran (2019) on social norms and women’s LFP globally, Duflo (2012) on women’s empowerment and economic development more broadly) — this blog simply highlights some of this recent work. The evidence stretches across demand and supply side side explanations, and their interactions in equilibrium.

Mobility constraints A wave of protests in India in 2012, motivated by a brutal sexual assault on a woman commuting to work, highlighted the risks women take when they choose to commute to opportunity. Recent work by Borker (2017) shows that women college students in Delhi are willing to forego admission in higher-ranked schools to as to avoid having to commute along relatively unsafe routes.

Education While interventions to increase safety reduce gender based violence, the potential to correct the attitudes that are the root cause offers enormous hope. Dhar et al (2018) evaluate an intervention at scale targeting attitudes towards restrictive gender norms among lower secondary students. They find large shifts, for both boys and girls, in not only attitudes but also behaviors, suggesting early interventions targeting these attitudes can be effective in shifting norms.


Norms and family While women themselves may want to work, they may face pressures from their family to stay at home. Subramanian (2020) uses a job search platform in urban Pakistan to study how characteristics of jobs affect women’s decisions to apply. She finds that women are much more likely to apply to jobs with female supervisors.

Psychological traps While women are constrained by these norms and attitudes, interventions can effectively support women to overcome these barriers. McKelway (2019) demonstrates that women can find themselves in a “belief trap”: they do not learn they can overcome these barriers because they do not believe that they can.

Husband’s wages and wage gaps Perhaps most surprising about the decrease in women’s labor force participation in India since 1990 is that it occurred during a period of rapid wage growth. Bhargava (2018) shows that married women’s labor supply is more negatively elastic to husbands' wages than it is positively elastic to their own wages

“Gendered” jobs When women’s employment is more accepted in some sectors of the economy, growth in those sectors can generate increases in women’s employment. Heath and Mobarak (2015) study the rapid growth of the garment sector in Bangladesh, which employs 15% of young women nationally.

Role models If social norms shape attitudes, increases in women’s labor force participation or women in positions of authority can shift attitudes, generating positive feedback.

Pakistani writer-dramatist Haseena Moin of ‘Dhoop Kinarey’ fame dies in Karachi
The women in Moin’s dramas were ambitious career women, a rare sight even in Bollywood those days

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/pakistani-writer-dramatist-...

Pakistani dramatist Haseena Moin, who was loved both in India and Pakistan for progressive shows such as “Tanhaiyaan” and “Dhoop Kinarey” and also penned the dialogues for Raj Kapoor’s blockbuster “Henna”, died here on Friday. She was 80.

Moin’s nephew Saeed told reporters she was getting ready to leave for Lahore when she had a cardiac arrest and died before she could receive any medical aid.

Moin, who epitomised the shared cultural heritage of the subcontinent with her relatable characters, particularly her strong women protagonists, was born in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, on November 20, 1941.

After Partition, her family moved to Pakistan and lived in Rawalpindi. They then moved to Lahore and eventually settled in Karachi. She completed her post-graduation from Karachi University in 1963.

A recipient of the Pride of Performance award for her extraordinary contribution to the arts in Pakistan, Moin was among Pakistan’s most respected and successful dramatists with a prolific career that stretched beyond Pakistani television to Bollywood, Pakistani movies, and included Indians shows such as “Tanha” as well as “Kash-m-Kash” on Doordarshan.

But it was her career as a drama writer that gave Moin enduring fame as people from both sides of the border lapped up her PTV shows, including “Ankahi”, “Tanhaiyaan”, “Dhoop Kinarey”, “Aahat”, “Uncle Urfi”, “Shehzori”, “Des Pardes” and “Aansoo”.

The women in Moin’s dramas were ambitious career women, a rare sight even in Bollywood those days.

In an interview, Moin, who took a break to fight breast cancer for about four years, said she realised when she came back that the world of Pakistani television had completely changed.

“The atmosphere we had created in 40 years, the kind of woman we brought up, who was bold, independent, could defend herself, was happy and spread happiness, that woman is no longer there,” she told Samina Peerzada, the star of her show “Nazdeekiyan”.


“She is now getting beaten, crying. You just pick up the remote and you will see women crying everywhere. I could not write something like this,” she said in an interview in 2018 that has gone viral on social media after news of her death came in and people flooded platforms with tributes.

She was the one who introduced Zeba Bakhtiar to Raj Kapoor for the movie “Henna”, a cross-border love story also starring Rishi Kapoor that she wrote.


Moin was the first Pakistani writer to write for a Bollywood film. Raj Kapoor wanted her to write the dialogues for his dream project and was keen to cast Pakistani actor Shehnaz Sheikh. After she declined, Moin recommended Bakhtiar as the leading lady.

The film, completed by Randhir Kapoor after Raj Kapoor’s death, was successful but Moin’s name was not mentioned in the credits, following her request due to tensions following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992.

Moin’s other popular shows include “Mere Dard ko Jo Zuban Milay”, “Kaisa Yeh Junoon”, “Dhundle Raaste” and “Shayad ke Bahar Aaye”.

Moin had started writing from her teenage years, coming up with a weekly column by the title of ‘Bhai Jan’ for a local publication when she was still in school.


She became popular with her plays for Radio Pakistan Karachi’s “Studio Number 9.

Moin became a teacher but her writing career took off when PTV offered her to write a play in 1969 for Eid and she came up with a light-hearted comedy “Happy Eid Mubarak”.

According to Pakistani media reports, Moin was last seen in public at a Pakistan Day event at the Arts Council of Pakistan in Karachi on March 23. A day before that, she visited the Arts Council of Pakistan to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Inspiring Story of "Ustad" Rozina Naz: A homeless #Pakistani #woman who went from living in abandoned bus in #Karachi to painting highway trucks. #art #TruckArt https://www.arabnews.pk/node/1837376#.YGtG12OLX3k.twitter

Rozina Naz, a single mother with two children, paints trucks and buses in a small settlement on the outskirts of Karachi
The truck artist says her profession has brought back color into her life
KARACHI: Two decades ago, an abandoned old bus that stood on top of a mound of scrap was home to Rozina Naz and her two children. Today, she is an accomplished artist, known as Ustad Rozi Khan, who paints buses and trucks in the very same neighborhood on the outskirts of Karachi.

Newly widowed and homeless 19 years ago, Naz had moved her family into the old bus, taking up odd jobs to feed herself and her children. But it was when she began visiting a painter’s shop years later, that she realized buses like her home could be her canvas.

“When my husband died, I had no one by my side and was all alone. I spotted a bus that stood on a heap of scrap and started living there with my two children,” she told Arab News at the Mawach Goth bus stand on Saturday.

Naz kept up with different odd jobs and the routine continued well after she was able to move out of the bus into a real home.

“I didn’t give up,” she said. “I was thinking, this time will pass too. I didn’t want to spread my hands in front of anyone.”


Her life changed when she began visiting a painter’s shop to unwind and read newspapers after a hard day’s work.

“The owner of the shop had two or three students,” she said. “When they left for home, he would put their wages in their hands.”

“I thought, this is a good way to earn a living.”

Naz was good at drawing in school and she put these skills to work painting trucks, a popular form of art decoration native to South Asia which features elaborate florals, calligraphy, landscapes and poetry painted on large cargo trucks in vivid colors.

The trucks, which colorfully dot inter-city highways, are painted almost exclusively by men in Pakistan.

“Many people would say: ‘You’re a woman and this line of work is not meant for you,’” she said.

“But I told them, it’s just another form of work and it has nothing to do with my gender.”

“If someone makes these statements, I don’t pay attention and continue to do my work,” she said. “I only think of my children.”

Now, armed with her paint buckets, Naz goes about her day on a motorcycle she bought on installments.

“My life became colorful when I started painting,” Naz said. “I fell in love with colors.”

“It’s been 19 years since I started using this brush. I still work in this small neighborhood, but I can sketch any design,” she continued proudly.

Levi Jeans' New #Pakistan Store is Run Entirely by #Women. It is 168-year-old #international clothing brand's first owned-and-operated store in Pakistan that’s staffed entirely by women. The store is located in #Lahore. #apparel https://sourcingjournal.com/denim/denim-brands/levis-lahore-pakista... via @SourcingJournal

The opening is a win for Pakistani women, as the Covid-19 pandemic hit vulnerable demographics especially hard and exposed an increasing need to learn alternative work skills. According to Maha Butt, the new store’s manager, Levi’s launch helps open a new line of work for those most affected.


“This is a great initiative that heads in the right direction to break gender-based stereotypes and perspectives,” she said. “It’s great that we can showcase retail as a good and rewarding career option for women.”

One of the world’s largest sources of funding for developing countries, the World Bank Group reported that while women make up 48.5 percent of Pakistan’s population, only about 22 percent are employed. To close that gap, companies throughout the global denim supply chain launched targeted initiatives to support Pakistani women.

In March, Pakistan-based Artistic Milliners launched HERessentials, a pilot program that helps women working within its factories develop social and technical skills needed to respond to environmental and socioeconomic changes. The program is established by the same organizers of HERproject, a skills-building initiative that’s also garnered support from denim heavyweights including Levi’s.

The denim brand noted that it has more work to do to connect Pakistani women with employment opportunities. Currently, the company reports that 14 percent of women make up its Pakistani retail workforce. It aims to increase that number to 25 percent by the end of 2021, and up to 40 percent by the end of 2022. A second women-run store is slated to open in Karachi later this year.

“I am so excited about this amazing store from our team in Pakistan,” said Elizabeth A. Morrison, who joined Levi Strauss as chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer last year. “It builds on and challenges us to advocate for what’s right while capturing our renewed commitment to focusing on ‘our insides’ and our intention to create a company that mirrors our consumers and communities.”

The initiative is part of Levi’s greater commitment to having better representation throughout the company. Last June, it published its first-annual diversity report which showed that women make up 55 percent of the company’s corporate division and 58 percent of its retail segment, but the majority of management positions are fulfilled by men. Males make up 59 percent of leadership positions, which LS&Co. defines as the top 250 leaders in the company. Men fulfill 56 percent of executive management positions and 67 percent of LS&Co.’s board of directors.

#American fried chicken has its origins in #slavery
Col Sanders, a white man, took credit by popularizing #KFC. #Scotsmen brought the chicken to southern #US states and the #African slaves who worked in the kitchens perfected the art of frying. #fastfood https://www.economist.com/1843/2021/07/02/american-fried-chicken-ha...

People serve chimaek in Korea: fried chicken with beer. In Japan you get karaage, nuggets of chicken marinated in soy sauce and garlic before being fried in a coating of wheat flour. Start with a citrus-based marinade and you’re on your way to Guatemalan fried chicken. America’s southern fried chicken is delicious but it is not, objectively, better than any other iteration. Yet it is American fried chicken, that of the American South to be precise, which has taken over the world.

The global reach of southern fried chicken is largely thanks to the efforts of a bearded colonel in a white suit and his secret blend of herbs and spices. But the dish’s history is far older than the self-styled colonel, and more fraught than his bland grin might suggest.

The origins of American fried chicken probably lie somewhere between Scotland and west Africa. The 145,000-odd Scots who made their way to the American South in the 18th century brought with them a tradition of battering and frying chicken. The almost half a million west Africans enslaved in North America brought a knack for frying and braising chicken from their own cuisines. It was these African-Americans, many of whom were forced to work in the kitchens of slave plantations, who perfected the art of frying chicken.

Most preferred beef and pork, and did not regard chicken as a proper meat

In this era chicken was a seasonal dish. Young, tender birds, ready in the spring, were best for frying. The cooking process was laborious. Once a bird was selected, it had to be caught, killed, scalded, plucked, gutted, singed to remove any final feathers and butchered. Only then could it be floured, seasoned and fried.

Two methods of frying chicken developed in America, in Virginia and Maryland. Mary Randolph was a white woman from a slaveholding family in Richmond, Virginia, and author of the first regional American cookbook, “The Virginia House-Wife”. She favoured frying the meat in a deep pot of bubbling lard. Published in 1824, her recipe appears to be the first one printed for southern fried chicken. On the other side of the Potomac river in Maryland, cooks preferred to shallow-fry the bird in a cast-iron skillet covered with a lid, serving it with a white gravy.


Chickens were not highly prized at the time. Colonial landowners rarely bothered to include them in their farm inventories. Most preferred beef and pork, and did not regard chicken as a proper meat. Instead it was considered suitable sustenance for sick men and those with weak constitutions, writes Emelyn Rude in “Tastes like Chicken: A History of America’s Favourite Bird”.

Thus it was that when, in 1741, the Carolinas revised their slave code to make it illegal for slaves to own pigs, cows or horses, chickens were omitted. The rest of the South soon introduced similar laws. Chickens, left to scratch around dung heaps and yards, became increasingly important to slaves, some of whom traded their eggs, feathers and meat.


During the civil war in the 1860s, it became increasingly hard to find enough food for soldiers, especially those on the Confederate side. Chickens became more valuable and their theft more common. Doctors, ministers, German factory workers, Italian chefs and even Mark Twain were accused of such crimes. The only ones prosecuted, however, were black Americans. In 1876 a black woman in Virginia was accused of stealing a chicken. As part of the evidence the mother hen was brought to court to identify her offspring. She convinced the court that she recognised her brood: as a result of the chicken’s testimony, the woman received 39 lashes.

Pakistan's Visually Impaired Young Woman Diplomat Exposes India's Lies at UNGA

https://www.riazhaq.com/2021/09/pakistans-visually-impaired-young-w...

Ms. Saima Saleem, Pakistan's young visually-impaired woman diplomat, is currently serving at the country’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Saima graduated from Lahore's Kinnaird College for Women. She won the Quaid-e-Azam Gold Medal for her outstanding academic performance and stood first in the Punjab Public Service Commission examination.

She spoke earlier today at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) 2021 to exercise her country's right of reply to false accusations leveled by Indian diplomat Sneha Dubey.

Saima Saleem rejected Dubey's claim that Jammu and Kashmir is "an integral part of India", and proceeded to describe India's brutal military occupation of the disputed territory. She reminded delegates of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions to this effect.

Saleem spoke of Indian government's massive human rights violations exposed by the UN Human Rights Commission and other rights organizations. Saleem said Indian leadership is obsessed with Pakistan.

She also shared EU Disinfo Lab's recent disclosure of the scope, scale and duration of India's massive disinformation campaign against Pakistan.

Rejecting India's allegations of terrorism against Pakistan, Saleem said India's arguments are those of an occupier seeking to delegitimize popular resistance as "terrorism".

Here's a video of Saima Saleem's UNGA Speech today:

https://youtu.be/EtPpvbiDGT4

3 Ways Hunar Ghar Helps Women in Pakistan


https://www.borgenmagazine.com/hunar-ghar-helps-women-in-pakistan/

Hunar Ghar helps women in Pakistan find confidence in themselves. Professional instructors teach skills such as embroidery, sewing, hairdressing, block printing and bag-making. Women enrolled in Hunar Ghar’s courses receive high-quality training allowing them to master their chosen skills. Learning improves by providing materials such as sewing machines, needles and cloth. All are entirely free for students. After completing their course, the women get an official certification to honor their hard work and achievements. Armed with the certificate, students can feel more confident in themselves and their abilities.

Hunar Ghar guides Pakistani women through the path of starting a business. After students complete their course, Hunar Ghar offers them the chance to sell their handmade products at the organization’s fundraisers and other events. Enrolled women get the opportunity to show their intricate kurtas, block print bags, hand-painted kitchenware and more to a large audience. As a result of more Pakistani consumers viewing their work, the women may begin to make a profit for themselves. Every year, nearly 250 Hunar Ghar course graduates can become entrepreneurs and establish their businesses.

English Biscuit Manufacturers Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr Zeelaf Munir has been elected as the new chairperson of the executive council of Pakistan Advertisers’ Society (PAS). She has become the first woman to get elected to this coveted post.

https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2021/12/08/dr-zeelaf-munir-elec...

Gillette’s CEO and Chief Operating Officer of Procter & Gamble, Khalid Fareed, was elected as vice-chairman while the Chief Executive Officer of the tea company of Unilever, Farheen Salman, was elected as the General-Secretary of the society.

Commenting on her election, Dr Zeelaf Munir said that it was an honour and matter of pride for her that that she had become the first woman chairperson of the society. “I express gratitude to all the members of the council that they have shown trust in my leadership abilities. I assure them that I would make best use of my abilities to come up to their expectations,” she said. The PAS executive committee meeting was attended by all the noted advertisers of Pakistan.

In a First for Pakistan, a Woman Is Cleared to Become a Supreme Court Justice
Justice Ayesha A. Malik’s nomination, intensely opposed by some lawyers that have threatened to strike, was hailed by others as an important victory in improving representation for women.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/world/asia/pakistan-woman-suprem...

Pakistan cleared the way for the first woman in the country’s history to become a Supreme Court justice, when a judicial commission on Thursday approved the elevation of Justice Ayesha A. Malik to the top court.

The nomination of Justice Malik, a justice on Lahore’s High Court, was hailed by lawyers and activists who saw it as a rare victory after decades of struggle to secure greater representation and rights for women in Pakistan’s largely conservative and male-dominated society.

“This is historic,” said Aliya Hamza Malik, a member of parliament from the governing Tehreek-e-Insaf bloc. “It is a defining moment for women’s empowerment in the country.”

Her nomination, which was backed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, will now go to a parliamentary committee, which is expected to confirm her appointment to a 10-year term.

The path to Justice Malik’s nomination was not smooth. She has faced bitter opposition from a large section of the legal community, and some lawyers have threatened to go on strike if she becomes part of the Supreme Court bench.

Last September, the judicial commission rejected Justice Malik’s elevation after four out of its eight members opposed her, citing her lack of seniority. Justice Malik is fourth in seniority on the Lahore High Court, which she joined in 2012.

Despite the opposition, the country’s chief justice continued to support her elevation to the top court, and legal advocacy groups have discounted the argument that lack of seniority is a disqualifying factor for nomination.

“This elevation has come 74 years too late, and we should all celebrate that some change to an all-male bench has finally come,” said Benazir Jatoi, an Islamabad-based lawyer, referring to the creation of an independent Pakistan in 1947.

“Our judicial system is alien to female representation,” Alia Zareen Abbasi, another Islamabad-based lawyer, noted. “Despite years and years of struggle and having very able female judges, none was able to make it to the Supreme Court. Even in high courts, the low, almost negligible percentage of female representation is very alarming.”

Some observers cautioned that one victory for women was far from enough in a country where sexual assault and discrimination remain largely unpunished crimes.

“If women continue to be shackled by patriarchy and regressive interpretations of Islam, we will continue to not progress in terms of developing the human capital required to succeed nationally and globally,” said Zarmeeneh Rahim, an Islamabad-based lawyer.

Still, she said, “to finally see a woman sit on the highest court in the land is a small step forward in that struggle.”

‘For the first time, I felt free’: #Pakistan’s #women-led #livestock market in #Sindh. Rural women have always reared animals but excluded from selling them. A new market is changing attitudes. Hundreds of women to trade animals at Marui livestock market https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/20/for-the-...

It is hoped that the market, organised by Tando Allahyar district government and local NGO the Research and Development Foundation (RDF), will encourage more women into the livestock sector. It is part of a six-year Growth for Rural Advancement and Sustainable Progress project to strengthen small-scale agribusinesses and reduce poverty in Sindh and Balochistan provinces, run in partnership with the International Trade Centre and the World Trade Organization.

-----------

In rural provinces, women have always reared animals but are excluded from selling them. A new market is changing attitudes

Global development is supported by
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
About this content
Zofeen Ebrahim in Tando Allahyar
Thu 20 Jan 2022 02.00 EST

On Saturday, Rozina Ghulam Mustafa arrived at the market in Tando Allahyar city, Pakistan’s Sindh province, to sell the goats she had raised, milked and fed.

Usually her brother sells the animals, but he sold them too cheaply because he didn’t know their true value. “He has always sold our goats at a much lower price,” she says, standing inside an enclosure with 15 of them.

For Mustafa, joining hundreds of women to trade animals at Marui livestock market – believed to be Pakistan’s first women-led livestock market – was a big moment.

By the afternoon, she had yet to sell any animals, but was unperturbed. “That’s OK; it’s my first time and I will learn how to trade,” she says. “For the first time I felt free, I could make the decision of buying and selling myself.”

Women in rural Pakistan have always reared animals, taking care of nutrition, milking and vaccinations and keeping their barns and sheds clean. But when the time comes for them to be sold, women are excluded. Taking the animals to market is considered a man’s job.

Mustafa’s 65-year-old mother, Rehmat, who accompanied her to the market with Mustafa’s brother, says that when she was younger “it was unthinkable for a woman to come to the market and sell; it was a man’s job”.

“I think this change is in the right direction. If women can rear, women can buy and sell, like men. What is so complicated about it?”

The market is busy. Children run between the animal enclosures and stalls selling homemade ghee (clarified butter), eggs, chickens, animal fodder and ornaments. Other stalls sell food, tea and hand-embroidered women’s clothing. The local government has a stall showcasing veterinary medicines.

Perween Panhwar has just bought her first goat for 19,000 PKR (£80) to start her livestock farm. “When I heard there was a women-led livestock market, I wanted the first animal I buy for the farm to be from this market,” she says.

Victory for #Women’s Rights in #Pakistan. New law against #sexualharassment that increases protections for women at #work has passed parliament. It expands on existing legislation from 2010, which had been criticized for being too narrow in scope. #metoo
https://www.cfr.org/blog/women-week-victory-womens-rights-activists...

Pakistan’s Parliament Approves New Workplace Harassment Bill

A new bill that increases protections for women at work has passed Pakistan’s parliament. The bill expands on existing legislation from 2010, which had been criticized for being too narrow in scope. The new law, which was enacted earlier this month, specifically confers protection to students, domestic workers, and employees in informal workplaces. Women’s rights activists have welcomed the amended legislation for addressing multiple forms of harassment and for including language about protecting employees from retaliation. Some actvists have called on Pakistan to ratify the International Labor Organization’s Violence and Harassment Convention (No. 190) as a next step in eliminating gender-based harassment in the workplace.

Pakistan start-up looks to break taboos around menstruation
Many women in the country remain uninformed about periods, but a social media-based project is targeting the problem

https://www.ft.com/content/e1bc10d8-d25b-45e7-93a3-43a024c80cd4



Saba Khalid has set herself the goal of breaking some of Islamic Pakistan’s long-held taboos with the help of the internet, smartphones and WhatsApp.

“Technology offers a sense of comfort,” she says of the work of Aurat Raaj, her Pakistani social enterprise. It educates women and adolescent girls about menstruation by means of audio messages sent via the WhatsApp social media platform.

Three years after Khalid, a journalist turned social entrepreneur, launched Aurat Raaj, she believes “there is a change of views coming” among communities in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, where her service operates.


Though still short of meeting its objective of seeing information on menstruation included in Pakistan’s school textbooks, Aurat Raaj has come a long way, Khalid says.

Rather than treating periods as a matter of shame, she and 30 field workers — so-called menstrual champions — spread their message about periods as a healthcare matter.

Aurat Raaj says it has reached at least 50,000 women through urban and rural campaigns, as well as podcasts and gatherings known as period parties.

Internet coverage in the region is patchy, so recorded messages in the native Sindhi language, rather than live content, are sent to the menstrual champions. These cover topics such as instructions on making sanitary pads with locally available cloth and the sanitisation of pads for reuse.

For Shaiwana Nasir, a menstrual champion based in Sukkur, 350km north-east of the port city of Karachi, making inroads into communities is a gradual process. “It’s a sensitive subject. People became offended when they were first approached,” she says.

The other challenge was the low level of smartphone ownership among women in the roughly 50 villages in Nasir’s area of responsibility. “We had to first convince village elders that this was an essential service. Once we gained acceptability, we were able to enrol local women in our sessions,” she says.

Each menstrual champion sets aside a room, typically in their home, where women gather to hear audio messages and participate in group discussions.




Breaking taboos around menstruation in rural Sindh has been difficult, because of the deeply conservative values many residents hold. Similarly, on matters of sex and birth control, the challenge was evident at a clinic in Karachi, where a doctor saw a woman in her mid-twenties who was in her seventh pregnancy in as many years of marriage to a truck driver.

The couple and their six children live in a two-room slum in Lyari, one of Karachi’s poorest neighbourhoods, where waterborne infections and other ailments are rife. “I told [the patient] that her life will be in danger [if she has more children], but it’s the same reply as I have heard from other patients — the husband doesn’t agree,” the doctor says.



The challenge of discussing sex-related issues is greatest among Pakistan’s uneducated poor — almost one-third of the population lives below the poverty line — but women from middle- and upper-income households also face obstacles in accessing such information. “In many homes, irrespective of their income level, women are under pressure to have more children,” the doctor adds. “The ideal of a two-child home is disregarded because families and husbands insist on large families.”

Khalid, however, remains optimistic. Although the Covid-19 pandemic forced Aurat Raaj to scale back meetings last year, the platform has since returned to its regular schedule, and the number of menstrual champions is set to rise to 100 in Sindh. Khalid is also hoping to expand Aurat Raaj’s services into Punjab province, which is home to some 60 per cent of the country’s population, and to send out its messages in local languages such as Punjabi and Pushto.

A Film About Bringing #Climbing to Girls in #Pakistan.
#Women in a remote #village in Pakistan are introduced to climbing for the first time with a public climbing wall built with more than 500 holds. #rockclimbing #GilgitBaltistan #climbing https://gripped.com/profiles/a-film-about-bringing-climbing-to-girl...

Climbing for a Reason is a nonprofit co-founded by Luis Birkner and Mateo Barrenengoa which strives to bring rock climbing to underprivileged communities around the world.

In August 2021, Birkner and Barrenengoa visited in Daskoor with famed Italian alpinist Tamara Lunger and Italo-Egyptian climber Wafaa Amer. Over three weeks, they developed the region’s first rock climbing area with 19 new sport routes up to 5.11c and built a public climbing wall with more than 500 holds. They also taught climbing safety practices and donated enough climbing gear to last the community for years. They also helped the locals start a climbing club, the first in the Shigar Valley.

In an early press release about the project stated, “Watching these girls climb for the first time in their lives, watching them play with each other… on their new climbing wall and on their own rocks, and seeing them feel like they were fighting a history of repressed women was priceless.” After her trip, Lunger said, “I leave Daskoor with mixed feelings. I have really grown fond of these girls and they have become almost a little part of me, on the other hand I know, that now they will have to find in themselves the will and the strength to continue and grow what we started.”

In Amer’s Instagram post below, she talks about not having access to climbing. Some of her words below are translated to: “As a child I had a hard time practicing this sport, climbing. I have done it secretly for years because due to my culture I was not allowed to go where I want, when I want, because I’m a woman. I was able to do it only thanks to many people who helped me… Now I too have managed to give to the children of Shigar.”

Climbing for a Reason is an international non-profit project that seeks to teach low-income communities to climb on their local rocks while also jumpstarting climbing-specific tourism and empowering local kids. Bircher said they want “to try to turn local communities into climbers of their own rocks and give them the tools so that in some way they can later develop tourism.”

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the country’s central bank and top #banking regulator, has directed all banks to employ at least 20% of #women in the workforce by 2023. #internationalwomensday #gender #finance
- Newspaper - DAWN.COM

https://www.dawn.com/news/1678880

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has directed banks to employ at least 20 per cent of women in the workforce by 2023.

Gender diversity is a must for economic development and inclusion of women in the financial system, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Dr Reza Baqir said on Monday at the launch ceremony of Asaan Digital Account (ADA).

The SBP in collaboration with Bank Alfalah, Standard Chartered Bank and UBL, hosted an event titled ‘Asaan Digital Account: Breaking Barriers’ on the eve of International Women’s Day.

Dr Baqir said that through Roshan Digital Account, the country has received about $3.5 billion during one and half years which is more than the foreign direct investment and the loans given by the International Monetary Fund.


Dr Baqir expressed confidence that ADA will break the barriers in financial inclusion of women by offering faster, cheaper, efficient and convenient solutions for meeting their requirements.

ADA is a digitised solution for opening a full-service bank account from anywhere, at any time, through smartphones or computers with only a CNIC and no other documentation requirements.

The governor lauded the contributions of women in various fields and stressed that women’s empowerment is the key to socio-economic developments in the country. He said that gender gaps do not allow women the same freedom to avail themselves opportunities, rights and obligations in all walks of life as compared to men. However, International Women’s Day encourages us to pause and reflect on the systemic barriers that limit women in their pursuits. He stressed the need to reflect and renew the sense of ambition, and transformative possibility around gender equality in the financial services space.

#Pakistan’s Bismah Maroof radiates the power to inspire change in #cricket. Pakistan’s captain is back playing in the #Women’s World Cup, having brought her 6-month-old daughter Fatima with her. #ICCWomensWorldCup2022 #NewZealand #InternationalWomensDay https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/mar/09/the-spin-cricket-paki...

It is more than 33 years ago since Neneh Cherry swaggered around the Top of the Pops stage in big white trainers performing Buffalo Stance with the fierce energy of a woman who was having a fine old time and wanted everyone to know about it. Around her neck hung a huge medallion and she wore a golden bustier and matching jacket. But it wasn’t her outfit that was the talking point at secondary school the next day – but the seven-month pregnancy bump that stuck proudly out of her Lycra miniskirt as she lip-synched along.

It was the first time many of us had seen a pregnant woman being, well, visible and certainly the only time we’d seen one looking so sensationally cool. Allegedly, a journalist was daft enough to check with Cherry that it was safe for her to go on stage in her state of pregnancy, to which she sighed: “It’s not an illness.”

It was footage of the Pakistan captain, Bismah Maroof, holding her six-month-old daughter Fatima at the Women’s World Cup in New Zealand that instantly brought back memories of that Thursday night watching Cherry. Although Maroof was dressed in her pine-green Pakistan tracksuit and had her hair pulled back in a sportswoman’s ponytail, she radiated the same power to inspire change.

Seeing female cricketers with their children is not unknown, and there are eight mothers playing in the current World Cup – Maroof, the New Zealand captain, Amy Satterthwaite, and her wife, Lea Tahuhu, West Indies’ Afy Fletcher, Australia’s Megan Schutt and Rachael Haynes, and Lizelle Lee and Masabata Klaas of South Africa – but it is practically unheard of on the subcontinent, where marriage and/or childbirth is usually the end for a cricketing career.

A fantastic article by Annesha Ghosh in The Cricket Monthly, looking at motherhood and cricket, summarises that only three of the 81 female cricketers contracted by India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are married. Maroof, then, is an outlier, not only leading her country but showing that motherhood does not have to spell the end to sporting ambition.

Maroof tells Ghosh that even during her own career, some of her teammates have had to give up the game: “Batool [Fatima], Nain [Abidi], Asmavia [Iqbal], Qanita [Jalil] and several others – they were all Pakistan teammates of mine who either couldn’t resume cricket for a long time after marriage or had to leave it altogether for good.”

However, the increased professionalism of the game over the past few years, and Maroof’s own pregnancy, nudged the Pakistan Cricket Board, during Wasim Khan’s spell as chief executive, into a maternity leave policy. This gives women a year’s paid leave (and men a month) plus shared costs of a support person to help with childcare – in this case Maroof’s mother, who has been seen cuddling Fatima in the stands.

Pakistan women fight gender norms to build online health business
by Zofeen T. Ebrahim |

https://news.trust.org/item/20220427154524-2hs38

Growing number of Pakistani women jump into health tech

Women founders face multiple barriers in conservative Pakistan

Mental health care not considered legitimate

Pakistan, April 28 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - After surviving a car crash that left her hospital-bound and unable to walk for months, Saira Siddique embarked on a mission: making health care accessible to Pakistanis.

The 45-year-old left her high-profile job in government health to pitch her app linking doctors and patients by video to investors.

Months later, with COVID-19 hurting businesses across Pakistan, Siddique's firm, MedIQ, burst on to the scene as the country's first "virtual hospital".

"(The pandemic) really gave a boost to my company," said Siddique.

With face-to-face doctors' appointments restricted due to contagion risks, Siddique's company, connecting patients across Pakistan with doctors and pharmacies, was suddenly in demand.

MedIQ served 16,000 patients in its first six months. Almost two years on, the number has increased by nearly 20 times.

Siddique is one of a growing number of women in Pakistan who are defying conservative gender norms by jumping into the health tech industry.


"Running a startup business is like riding a bull," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from the capital Islamabad.

"You never know which way or how hard it's going to buck."

Siddique's company raised $1.8 million in an early stage of financing last week after receiving mentoring in the World Bank-backed WeRaise programme, which helps women-led ventures in Pakistan raise capital.

'DOCTOR BRIDES'
Others are blazing a similar path.

Two entrepreneurs in Karachi wanted to use the untapped potential of tens of thousands of so-called "doctor brides" - women doctors who quit their medical practise after marriage in a country where millions have no access to medical care.

Iffat Zafar Aga and Sara Saeed Khurram's platform allows female medics to provide e-consultations from their homes to patients in mostly rural communities.

In the country of some 210 million the doctor-patient ratio stands at just a little over one for every 1,000 patients, according to the World Bank.

Countries such as the United States, Japan and Brazil have more than two doctors for every 1,000 patients, while Britain has nearly four.

The pair has set up dozens of 'e-health clinics' in low-income communities where, for as little as 80 rupees ($0.43), a patient visits a nurse who uses the online platform to reach a doctor.

Khurram said they provided free consultations during COVID-19 after the government sought their help - a task made possible by their team of 7,000 doctors, many of whom are former doctor brides.

The phenomenon of doctor brides remains pervasive with many families encouraging their daughters to study medicine not for a career, but to bolster marriage prospects.

More than 70% of the country's doctors are women, but only half will ever practise, according to the Pakistan Medical Commission.

'LATE-NIGHT DEALS'
From domestic violence to anxiety over job losses and grief of losing family members to Covid-19, requests for virtual appointments on ReliveNow, an online mental health care platform, surged during lockdowns.

Amna Asif, its founder and CEO, said most of the clients were women, including single mothers, struggling to juggle children while working from home.

"This put us on the radar, and helped increase our sales," said Asif by phone.

Founded in 2018, ReliveNow has clients - 80% of whom are women - in dozens of countries including Pakistan, Britain, Canada and Australia.

But the road to success for firms like MediIQ and Sehat Kahani has been paved with misogyny, stereotypes and discouragement.

Hira Mohibullah has moved to the North American market, becoming executive creative director at VMLY&R based in Kansas City. She formerly served as ECD at BBDO Pakistan. Mohibullah now joins the senior ranks of VMLY&R’s U.S. creative team and report to John Godsey, chief creative officer, North America.

https://www.shootonline.com/news/exec-creative-director-hira-mohibu...

Mohibullah spent six years moving up the ladder to ECD at BBDO Pakistan where she worked on such accounts as Unilever, 7UP, Frito-Lay and UNWomen Pakistan. In her time at BBDO, Mohibullah’s leadership was instrumental in elevating the agency’s reputation into worldwide circles. Mohibullah has won over 215 international awards, including Cannes Lions, D&AD and Clio honors, receiving international acclaim for campaigns that have driven social progress such as changing legislation around child marriages, reducing child-burn incidents by 50% and supporting the reunion of missing children with their families.

“With her award-winning creative talent, wide-ranging experience, as well as strong design thinking, I am confident Hira will deliver exceptional approaches and solutions for our clients and continue to push creative momentum for the agency,” said Godsey.

Mohibullah is celebrated for her advocacy of gender balance in the workplace. She has leveraged the power of advertising to impact positive social change in Pakistan, with a special focus on women’s empowerment. A mother of two, she has helped set up a daycare at two of her previous workplaces, enabling more mothers to join and remain in the workforce.

“VMLY&R boasts of a phenomenal body of work that’s powered by human connection and I’m absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to drive that vision forward,” Mohibullah said.

Over her 12-year career, Mohibullah has also worked at agencies including Ogilvy and Leo Burnett and brings 10-year beverage experience on brands including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

Additional accolades include Cannes Lions See It Be It alumnus, Creative LIAisons mentor and TEDx speaker. She has also served on juries for such competitions as Cannes Lions, D&AD, Clio, New York Festivals, Young Guns and ADSTARS.

Pakistan’s generational shift
By Dr Ayesha RazzaqueMay 22, 2022

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/959718-pakistan-s-generational-shift

Last year saw the publication of ‘Womansplaining – Navigating Activism, Politics and Modernity in Pakistan,’ a book edited by Federal Minister Sherry Rehman to which I was able to contribute a chapter. It connected education with women’s rights and argued that indigenous movements like the Aurat March should focus on education as a core part of their agenda.

Detractors of Pakistan’s women’s rights movement have been taking potshots at it by claiming that the issues it raises are not the issues of ‘real’ (read: rural) women. Put aside for a minute the fact that Pakistan’s rural population now accounts for 62 per cent, down from 72 per cent in 1980, and is on a steady decline. While the numbers may differ, and women’s power to negotiate may differ, rural and urban women share basic challenges and better education can yield similar opportunities and improvements in life circumstances.

Indigenous progressive and women’s rights movements have adopted the cause of education as an agenda item but should make it front and center, specifically K-12 education for girls in rural areas. New data further substantiates that connection with numbers. Education up to the higher secondary level, just the education that rural schools offer today, is the enabler that brings increased women’s labour force participation, delayed first marriage, lower rates of consanguinity, increased income, increased spousal income, and is a contributing factor to greater freedom of movement and communication – all positives.

Studies exploring the relationships between levels of education and life circumstances around the world are plentiful and capture the situation at a point and place in time. The Learning and Educational Achievements in Pakistan Schools (LEAPS) programme is qualitatively different because it already spans a period of almost two decades. The LEAPS programme has been tracking lower- and middle-income households in 120 randomly selected villages across three districts in rural Punjab since 2003. It has been revisiting them since then, most recently for the sixth time in 2018, roughly once every three years. That makes it one of the largest and longest panels of households in lower- and middle-income countries. This study is also unique as it looks at return on investment in education beyond an individual’s income and looks into the possible spillover into life circumstances and quality-of-life which is especially interesting for those interested in women empowerment and feminist movements.

In this latest round it surveyed 2006 women now aged 20-30. All these women were from the same 120 birth villages and have been tracked to their marital homes within or outside the village if they have married, migrated or moved for any other reason. Preliminary descriptive results of the long-running LEAPS study tell interesting stories. The headline finding of LEAPS investigators is that Pakistan is in the midst of a ‘generational shift’ where, for the first time in its education history, we have a ‘critical mass of moderately educated women’.

In this generation only 18.7 per cent of rural women are without an education, down from 75.5 per cent from their mothers’ generation. Nearly 50 per cent have an education ranging from a primary to secondary education, up from just 20 per cent in the previous generation. A stunning 22.9 per cent have a higher secondary or above education, up from an almost nothing 0.3 per cent in their previous generation.



-----------

Existing plans, at least in the domain of education, remain unguided by some of the very excellent evidence that is available. Meanwhile, the Planning Commission is organizing a ‘Turnaround Pakistan’ conference perhaps as early as May 28 to conduct national consultations. Whether a hurriedly thrown together conference can change the way business is done remains to be seen.

So, in 2020-21 for every hundred rupees that employed men earn, women earn around eighty-one rupees. This is up from women earning seventy rupees for every hundred rupees that men earned in 2018-19. (Labor Force Survey 2020-21)

https://nation.com.pk/2022/04/29/pakistans-labour-force/

Using ILO’s framework, the gender pay gap in agriculture in Pakistan is still very high—36.24 percent. The good news is that this is lower than 2018, when the gender pay gap was 40.69 percent. To put another way, in 2020-21, for every hundred rupees that men employed in the agriculture sector earn, women earn around sixty-three rupees only. This is up from women earning fifty-nine rupees for every hundred rupees that men in the agriculture sector earned in 2018-19. Again, while the gender pay gap is atrociously high, over the period of analysis it has declined and that is an absolutely positive achievement. The overall gender wage gap has almost halved over the period of analysis. So, in 2020-21 for every hundred rupees that employed men earn, women earn around eighty-one rupees. This is up from women earning seventy rupees for every hundred rupees that men earned in 2018-19.
This report paints a rosy picture of the labour force in Pakistan. But some macroeconomic issues continue to manifest. Low LFPR among the youth, urban unemployment which exerts additional pressure on the cities, gender pay gaps and disproportionate size of the informal economy. Moving forward, serious attention has to be paid on generating meaningful employment across the country, specifically in KP which has the highest rate of unemployment.

LEAPS is a youth-led ECCE program that trains female youth, 18–24 years, as Community Youth Leaders (CYLs) to deliver high-quality ECCE for children, 3.5–5.5 years, in rural Sindh, Pakistan.

https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-021....

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the importance of investments in early childhood care and education (ECCE) and youth development. Given Pakistan’s large young population, and gender and urban-rural inequalities in access to education, training, and employment, such investments offer opportunities. LEAPS is a youth-led ECCE program that trains female youth, 18–24 years, as Community Youth Leaders (CYLs) to deliver high-quality ECCE for children, 3.5–5.5 years, in rural Sindh, Pakistan.


-----------

The results showed significant improvements in children’s school readiness as assessed by the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA; [31]) (Cohen’s d = 0.3) [26]. A qualitative analysis of CYL exit interviews also indicated improved professional and personal development benefits for female youth leaders including aspirations for education and career, mental health benefits, and higher self-confidence [32, 33].

Pakistan Labor Force Survey 2020-21

Refined Activity (Participation) Rate (%)

Pakistan Total 44.9 Male 67.9 Female 21.4

Rural 48.6 Male 69.1 Female 28.0

Urban  Male 65.9 Female 10.0

https://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/labour_force/publication...

90% of Women in India Are Shut Out of the Workforce
A small fraction of women in India had formal employment before the pandemic. Covid made it so much worse.

By Ronojoy Mazumdar and Archana Chaudhary
June 1, 2022, 5:01 PM PDT

https://www.tbsnews.net/bloomberg-special/90-women-india-are-shut-o...

For years, Sanchuri Bhuniya fought her parents' pleas to settle down. She wanted to travel and earn money — not become a housewife.

So in 2019, Bhuniya snuck out of her isolated village in eastern India. She took a train hundreds of miles south to the city of Bengaluru and found work in a garment factory earning $120 a month. The job liberated her. "I ran away," she said. "That's the only way I was able to go."

That life of financial freedom ended abruptly with the arrival of Covid-19. In 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared a nationwide lockdown to curb infections, shutting almost all businesses. Within a few weeks, more than 100 million Indians lost their jobs, including Bhuniya, who was forced to return to her village and never found another stable employer.

As the world climbs out of the pandemic, economists warn of a troubling data point: Failing to restore jobs for women — who have been less likely than men to return to the workforce — could shave trillions of dollars off global economic growth. The forecast is particularly bleak in developing countries like India, where female labor force participation fell so steeply that it's now in the same league as war-torn Yemen.

This week's episode of The Pay Check podcast explores how the coronavirus accelerated an already worrying trend in the world's second-most populous country. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of working women in India dropped from 26% to 19%, according to data compiled by the World Bank. As infections surged, a bad situation turned dire: Economists in Mumbai estimate that female employment plummeted to 9% by 2022.

This is disastrous news for India's economy, which had started slowing before the pandemic. Modi has prioritized job creation, pressing the country to strive for amrit kaal, a golden era of growth. But his administration has made little progress in improving prospects for working women. That's especially true in rural areas, where more than two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people live, conservative mores reign and jobs have been evaporating for years. Despite the nation's rapid economic expansion, women have struggled to make the transition to working in urban centers.

Closing the employment gap between men and women — a whopping 58 percentage points — could expand India's GDP by close to a third by 2050. That equates to nearly $6 trillion in constant US dollar terms, according to a recent analysis from Bloomberg Economics. Doing nothing threatens to derail the country on its quest to become a competitive producer for global markets. Though women in India represent 48% of the population, they contribute only around 17% of GDP compared to 40% in China.

India is an extreme illustration of a global phenomenon. Across the world, women were more likely than men to lose jobs during the pandemic, and their recovery has been slower. Policy changes that address gender disparities and boost the number of working women — improved access to education, child care, or flexible work arrangements, for example — would help add about $20 trillion to global GDP by 2050, according to Bloomberg Economics.

For workers like Bhuniya, 23, the pandemic had heavy consequences. After losing her job, she struggled to afford food in Bengaluru and eventually returned to her remote village, Patrapali, in the state of Odisha. Bhuniya doesn't think she'll have another opportunity to leave. She no longer earns a steady income, but her family worries about her safety as a single woman living in a distant city.

https://www.tbsnews.net/bloomberg-special/90-women-india-are-shut-o...

"If I run away again, my mother will curse me," said Bhuniya. "Now, there's nothing left. My account is empty and there's little work in the village."

The story echoes across India. During the pandemic, Rosa Abraham, an economics professor at Azim Premji University in Bengaluru, tracked more than 20,000 people as they navigated the labor market. She found that after the first lockdown, women were several times more likely to lose their jobs than men and far less likely to recover work after restrictions lifted.

Pandemic Impact on Employment
How India's Covid lockdowns affected employment for men and women


Increased domestic duties, lack of childcare options after school shutdowns, and a surge in marriages — which often confine women's autonomy in India — help explain the difference in outcome.

"When men are faced with this kind of a huge economic shock, then they have a fallback option," Abraham said. "They can navigate to different kinds of work. But for women, there is no such fallback option. They can't negotiate the labor market as effectively as men do."

Dreams of freedom or a well-paid office job were replaced with what she called "distress-led employment," essentially unpaid work on a family farm or taking care of the home. Prior to the pandemic, Indian women already performed about 10 times more care work than men, around three times the global average.

"It is the unfortunate situation that the decision to work is often not in the hands of the woman herself," Abraham said.

The decline in workforce participation is partly about culture. As Indians became wealthier, families that could afford to keep women at home did so, thinking it conferred social status. On the other extreme, those at the lowest rungs of society are still seen as potential earners. But they tend to work menial or unpaid jobs far from the formal economy. In the official statistics, their labor is not counted.

In many villages, patriarchal values remain ironclad, and a stigma against girls persists. Though illegal, sex-selective abortions are still common. Akhina Hansraj, senior program manager at Akshara Centre, a Mumbai-based organization that advocates for gender equity, said Indian men often think "it's not very manly if their wife contributes to the family income."

"They want to create this dependency," Hansraj said. "People believe if women get educated, they might work and become financially independent and then they may not obey and respect the family."

Marriage is a sticking point in India, where most weddings are still arranged. After the first lockdown, in 2020, the country's leading matrimony websites reported a spike in new registrations. In some states, marriages among children and young adults — many of them illegal under Indian law — jumped by 80%, according to government data.

Madhu Sharma, a Hindi teacher at the Pardada Pardadi Educational Society, a girls' school in the northern town of Anupshahr, said she might intervene in three child marriages a year. During the pandemic, when the campus closed, the number increased three to four times.

"Before Covid, children were always in touch with their teachers and also with me," she said. "After Covid, when the children had to stay at home, keeping in contact with them became a big challenge."

Financial considerations often tipped the scales in favor of marriage. Social distancing and warnings against large gatherings meant parents could hold small, less-expensive ceremonies at home, rather than the multi-day celebrations that are common even in the poorest pockets of society. During the direst stretches of the pandemic, some families married off daughters because they couldn't afford to feed another mouth.

https://www.tbsnews.net/bloomberg-special/90-women-india-are-shut-o...

For Sharma's students, getting married before finishing school can change the trajectory of their lives. In India, when a woman marries, she typically moves in with her husband and in-laws. That can make it difficult to leave secluded villages where policing of choices is common and employment opportunities are scarce.

"We try to educate our students," Sharma said. "We explain to them that if they study, they will be in a good spot. If they don't, we describe what their position will be like. 'The rest is up to you,' we tell them. You live life the way you want to create it."

In 2015, Modi started a campaign called "Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao," which roughly means "Save Our Daughters, Teach Our Daughters." It's an initiative aimed at keeping girls in school and reducing sex-selective abortion. The government has also tried to eradicate child marriage. Last year, Modi's administration passed a proposal to raise the legal marriage age for women from 18 to 21, which is what it is for men.

But in many villages, national laws are distant abstractions. Local customs are still set and enforced by local panchayats, essentially a group of elders, almost all men. And while Modi's campaign to educate India's daughters received lots of publicity, recent government audits found that much of the initiative's funds remained unspent.

Even in urban metropolises, where literacy rates are far higher and jobs are more abundant, the pressure on women is overwhelming.

Anjali Gupta, who lives in Mumbai, said she was barely hanging on. First, the coronavirus lockdowns devastated her family's small grocery store, forcing them to exhaust their savings to survive. Then her parents started pushing Gupta and her three sisters to get married, fearing that they would be left destitute without husbands.

Gupta tried to reason with them. She had already spent about $1,300 studying for a master's degree in pharmaceuticals and nutrition. She was training with a homeopathic doctor. She wanted a career. "I explained that my situation is different, my generation is different," Gupta said.

But after an uncle died from the coronavirus, Gupta's father pleaded with her to drop out of school, a prospect that induced migraines and endless arguments. Her parents started bringing prospective grooms home. Gupta worries the inertia will eventually overpower her.

"It shouldn't be this way," she said. "I want to do and learn more. I'm only 22."

Pakistan's female labor participation rate of 21.4% (LFS 20290-21) is higher than India's 16.1% (Reuters report)


----------------

Pakistan Labor Force Survey 2020-21



Refined Activity (Participation) Rate (%)

Pakistan Total 44.9 Male 67.9 Female 21.4

Rural 48.6 Male 69.1 Female 28.0

Urban Male 65.9 Female 10.0

-----------

India's female labour participation rate falls to 16.1% as pandemic hits jobs

According to World Bank estimates, India has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates in the world. Less than a third of women – defined in the report as 15 or older – are working or actively looking for a job.

The female labour participation rate in India had fallen to 20.3% in 2019 from more than 26% in 2005, according to World Bank estimates, compared with 30.5% in neighbouring Bangladesh and 33.7% in Sri Lanka.

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-female-labour-participat....

Indian media on World Bank Report Reshaping Norms: A New Way Forward 2022

https://theprint.in/economy/does-development-mean-more-women-in-wor...

Does development mean more women in work? Yes in Pakistan but not India, says World Bank study
In India, women's participation in workforce fell after per capita income passed $3,500, says study published in World Bank's South Asia Economic Focus. Experts cite 'patrilineal trap'.

New Delhi: It’s generally assumed that economic development and women’s participation in the labour force go hand in hand. However, a World Bank study has found that the relationship is more complex in South Asia — particularly in India — than previously thought.

Published in April this year in the World Bank’s South Asia Economic Focus, Spring 2022, the study, titled ‘Reshaping Norms: a New Way Forward’, found that economic development corresponded with a rise in women’s participation in the workforce in some South Asian countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, but only up to a point in India.

The study took into consideration Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on purchasing power parity (PPP) from 1985 to 2019. PPP is the rate at which one country’s currency would have to be converted into another’s to buy the same amount of goods and services.

It found that female labour force participation (FLFP) — the percentage of women currently employed or unemployed actively looking for work — varies from country to country in South Asia. The study also found that in India, FLFP fell after per capita income surpassed $3,500.

The South Asian countries included in this particular analysis of the study were India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, and the Maldives.

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/37121/97...


-------


The study claims that when a country is largely agrarian, women’s participation in agriculture and allied activities is higher. However, as a country industrialises and as the need to have more working hands go down, this participation declines, largely due to societal biases against women working in manufacturing units.

The curve rises again at higher-income levels as a result of growth in the service sector coupled with higher education levels among women and a lower fertility rate (that is, the number of children born alive to women of that age during the year as a proportion of the average annual population of women of the same age).

The study, however, shows that the growth trajectory isn’t uniform across South Asian countries. For instance, in Sri Lanka and Nepal, the FLFP has barely changed despite economic development. In Bangladesh, Bhutan, Pakistan, and the Maldives, a rise in per capita income corresponds with a rise in FLFP. India, too, saw a similar corresponding rise but only until it reached a per capita income of $3,500, the study shows.

According to the World Bank’s estimates, Bangladesh had an FLFP of 35 per cent, Pakistan 21 per cent and India 19 per cent in 2021.


Evans told ThePrint that although both Bangladesh and Pakistan have low female employment, “an additional constraint in India may be labour regulation, which suppresses job-creation in the formal economy”.

“It traps families in precarity, reinforces reliance on kinship, and encourages jati-endogamy (the custom of marrying within one’s caste),” she told ThePrint via email. “Moreover, employers frequently subcontract to home-based workers in order to artificially reduce the size of their firm and circumvent labour regulations. This kind of informal ‘gig’ work keeps many women trapped by family surveillance and control.”

Pakistani UN envoy Dr. Nafis Sadik, a champion of women's health and rights around the world, dies at 92

https://www.npr.org/2022/08/16/1117653776/nafis-sadik-a-champion-of...

Born in Jaunpur in British-ruled India, Nafis Sadik was the daughter of Iffat Ara and Muhammad Shoaib, a former Pakistani finance minister. After receiving her medical degree from Dow Medical College in Karachi, she began her career working in women's and children's wards in Pakistani armed forces hospitals from 1954 to 1963. The following year she was appointed head of the health section of the government Planning Commission.

-------


Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani doctor who championed women's health and rights and spearheaded the breakthrough action plan adopted by 179 countries at the 1994 U.N. population conference, died five days before her 93rd birthday, her son said late Monday.

Omar Sadik said his mother died of natural causes at her home in New York on Sunday night.

Nafis Sadik joined the U.N. Population Fund in 1971, became its assistant executive director in 1977, and was appointed executive director in 1987 by then Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar after the sudden death of its chief, Rafael Salas. She was the first woman to head a major United Nations program that is voluntarily funded.

In June 1990, Perez de Cuellar appointed Sadik to be secretary-general of the fifth U.N. International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and she became the architect of its groundbreaking program of action which recognized for the first time that women have the right to control their reproductive and sexual health and to choose whether to become pregnant.


The Cairo conference also reached consensus on a series of goals including universal primary education in all countries by 2015 — a goal that still hasn't been met — and wider access for women to secondary and higher education. It also set goals to reduce infant and child mortality and maternal mortality and to provide access to reproductive and sexual health services, including family planning.

While the conference broke a taboo on discussing sexuality, it stopped short of recognizing that women have the right to control decisions about when they have sex and when they get married.

Natalia Kanem, current executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, called Sadik a "proud champion of choice and tireless advocate for women's health, rights and empowerment."

"Her bold vision and leadership in Cairo set the world on an ambitious path," a journey that she said continued at the 1995 U.N. women's conference in Beijing and with adoption of U.N. development goals since 2000 that include achieving gender equality and many issues in the Cairo program of action.

Since Cairo, Kanem said, "millions of girls and young women have grown up knowing that their bodies belong to them, and that their futures are there to shape."

A serial entrepreneur Tanweer Ahmed and his devotion to make lives better

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-network/a-serial-entrepreneur-tanwe...


The diversity of this world is great, and not one person has the same story to tell as another; including Tanweer Ahmed. Ever since he can remember he has been finding ways to be independent and a successful Leader. Leaders in companies oftentimes have to work hard and lead others to work hard as well. Tanweer Ahmed, since the moment he left Pakistan for good in the 80s, has been excelling in every single initiative that he has taken. Dedication is attractive to customers. Ultimately, the leadership shown through dedication and passion play a major part in the successful journey.

Tanweer Ahmed is a brand, a person, and a company that owns several top-notch companies. He has built himself into this with years of toil and struggle. The small-town boy got here to the USA with big goals in his heart. Despite having a massive language barrier, and cultural differences, He ultimately started running the food industry in California. After a huge amount of struggle, he started a transportation company.

This is where he met the federal reserve vice chairman and afterwards sent him the idea as to how they can revive the banking industry. With the acceptance, he got his 1st massive fulfillment of becoming one of the largest agencies in 5 one-of-a-kind different states on the west coast aspect. He shifted his industry to food again with a bang and he added some food chains to his portfolio like KFC, pizza hut, and Taco Bell. He believes, that with loyalty, integrity, and honesty, no person can stop your fulfillment.

With an individual being hands-on, he effectively redirected towards the energy business when on one occasion in the wake of viewing his benefit and misfortune explanation which had an enormous lump of cost as energy. In the wake of occupying all the experience and learnings of advisors and designers, he was at last ready to open up an energy organization. That’s not it. With his passion for cricket in his heart, he left his hometown and flew to the USA. But that also never diminished his love for the game. Widely spreading his wings in the USA Market as a successful Businessman still his evenings would be spent playing cricket. Day by Day, his passion grew more and it was then that he decided to build the largest Cricket Stadium in the USA.

Tanweer Ahmed is not just an entrepreneur, mentor but also a person with philanthropy in his roots. He has actively been involved in financing Weddings of Girls in his homeland like his mother used to do. He has donated acres of land for the establishment of Islamic School and Muslim Graveyard in USA.

The self-made man is often portrayed as a story of rags to riches. A person who overcomes any obstacle thrown at him or her and defies all odds. Such is the story of Tanweer Ahmed.

Empowering Women in Pakistan’s Economy: Lessons from Bangladesh
Written by Noorulain Naseem, Hadiqa Sohail
October 3, 2022


https://southasianvoices.org/empowering-women-in-pakistans-economy-...


Empowering and including women in the economy could be the untapped potential necessary to drive growth and development that is essential for reviving a staggering economy. Pakistan’s GDP could increase by 60 percent by 2025 if the female labor force becomes equal to the male labor force. However, to improve the access of women to the workforce in Pakistan, a deep knowledge of cultural and institutional constraints is important. Pakistan has the lowest level of gender parity when compared with other South Asian states. Offering an important comparative context, Bangladesh’s recent progress is a compelling case in particular as it is a relatively younger country, also has a Muslim majority, and faced alarming levels of poverty in the past but has been able to revive its economy, literacy rate, life expectancy and increase women participation in the workforce to 35 percent in recent years. Bangladesh’s can offer a powerful lesson in successful policies that bring women into economic development.

Living standards for many Pakistani women, and lack of access to health and education especially in rural areas are a substantial obstacle to economic empowerment. This is especially true in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) regions, where only 1 in 10 girls can read, and 50 percent of young girls have never stepped into a school. In Balochistan—which has the lowest female literacy rate of 24 percent in all of Pakistan’s provinces—67 percent of girls are out of school and female labor participation stands at just 4.9 percent. In addition, the health sector of rural sectors, especially the ex-FATA region, reflects dire conditions: women who give birth under medical care falls at around 26 percent in the ex-FATA regions. Lack of education, poor health, and absence from the formal economy eventually result in low levels of essential skillsets and financial independency.

The dire economic stagnation and lack of gender parity in Pakistan can be addressed by the introduction of women-centric developmental strategies by state institutions, international aid organizations, and endorsement of women’s economic empowerment at local level leadership. Community level programs can invest in building the sense of urgency to invest in women education, health, encourage entrepreneurship, with the intention of building a women workforce; that is skilled and facilitated at state and community level to corresponding industry and production requirements. This investment will be effective in twofold manner: first, internally, it will help drive the young female population’s appetite to achieve milestones in education, health, and contribute to innovation and in turn to the growth of economy. Externally, Pakistan’s untapped female skilled labor can help position Pakistan better in the competition with the regional and global economies. Calling for the female youth towards action and share responsibility, while also preparing and training this potential workforce can enable Pakistani women to help the state and its communities in overcoming the economic and development challenges.

From Pakistan to the Philippines, women break open closed industries

Female pioneers make their mark as combat pilots, cricketers and chip technologists

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Women-s-Wealth/From-Pakistan-to-t...


At the other end of the subcontinent, Urooj Mumtaz grew up playing cricket behind a carpet factory in Karachi, Pakistan. As a teen, she was captaining a boys’ team at the local club. “There still isn’t a girls’ team at the club,” Mumtaz told Nikkei Asia in an interview.

In 2006, she went on to captain Pakistan’s national cricket team, and later became the nation’s first woman to commentate an international men’s cricket match.

Both Alam and Mumtaz have managed to score a few wins on equality in their countries. Basics such as airfare, accommodation and gear have been secured, but several innings remain to pay parity.

“If the (men) are getting 100% then we are getting maybe 30 to 40%,” Alam said in an interview, noting the gap was narrower now than when they were making 5% to 10% a decade ago. Mumtaz said there was a fivefold gender pay differential in the highest category of cricket in Pakistan.

“When you get better facilities, when you pay them better … when you give them better travel, better hotels to stay at, everything translates into better results,” she said.

Several players and branding agencies have called on cricket boards to sharpen the spotlight on female cricketers via marketing campaigns. More fans would mean bigger television audiences and the promise of lucrative endorsement deals, which can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars for individual cricketers.

Karachi-born Asma Naeem to be the head of the Baltimore Museum of Art

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/arts/design/baltimore-museum-dir...

Baltimore Museum of Art Taps Its Chief Curator as Its Next Director

The Baltimore Museum of Art announced Tuesday that Asma Naeem, its chief curator since 2018 and interim co-director, will become director effective Feb. 1.

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, and raised in Baltimore, Naeem practiced law for almost 15 years before switching careers and finishing her Ph.D. in American art. She becomes the first person of color to lead the museum, founded in 1914, and will oversee its collection of more than 97,000 objects and an annual operating budget of $23 million.

Naeem, 53, has been interim co-director of the museum since Christopher Bedford, the former director, left last June for the top post at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Naeem had a central role in shaping and implementing the Baltimore Museum’s strategic plan, adopted in 2018, that placed social equity alongside artistic excellence as a core principle guiding the museum’s mission. Since then, the B.M.A., as it is known locally, has been at the forefront of efforts to acquire and exhibit work by underrepresented artists and to diversify its staff, board and audiences — issues being addressed by museums nationwide to varying degrees.

“We were most impressed with how Asma has been part of the work and with her vision for the institution, in terms of how to build on this work and take us to that next level,” said James D. Thornton, chairman of the museum’s board, which promoted Naeem after a 10-month national search.

Shahzia Sikander, 53, the paradigm-busting Pakistani American artist behind the work, said the sculpture was part of an urgent and necessary cultural reckoning underway as New York, along with cities across the world, reconsiders traditional representations of power in public spaces and recasts civic structures to better reflect 21st-century social

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/arts/design/discrimination-sculp...


Move Over Moses and Zoroaster: Manhattan Has a New Female Lawgiver

The Lahore-born Sikander, whose work has been displayed at the Whitney Biennial and who made her name reimagining the art of Indo-Persian miniature painting from a feminist, post-colonial perspective, was at pains to emphasize that Muhammad’s removal and her installation were completely unrelated. “My figure is not replacing anyone or canceling anyone,” she said.

Much as Justice Ginsburg wore her lace collar to recast a historically male uniform and proudly reclaim it for her gender, Sikander said her stylized sculpture was aimed at feminizing a building that was commissioned in 1896. Writing in The New Yorker in 1928, the architect and author George S. Chappell called the rooftop ring of male figures atop the building a “ridiculous adornment of mortuary statuary.”

The aesthetic merits of the courthouse’s sumptuous Beaux-Arts-style architecture aside, the building’s symbolism has outsize importance in New York’s civic and legal identity and beyond: The court hears appeals from all the trial courts in Manhattan and the Bronx, as well as some of the most important appeals in the country.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Careem — a ride-hailing service operating in Pakistan — announced its plan to launch a new women-driven motorbike service, catering exclusively to its female customers.

The company announced that the service will commence in Karachi and make its way to other cities in Pakistan, urging women — who are interested in working as female captains and getting access to flexible income opportunities — to get themselves registered.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1047582-good-news-for-pakistani-f...


--------------

Pakistan ready to write new chapter in women's cricket history

https://www.pcb.com.pk/press-release-detail/pakistan-ready-to-write...

tar-studded Amazons and Super Women will go toe to toe in a three-match series on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; Women’s League exhibition matches will start at 2pm and will be followed by HBL PSL 8 games, which will commence at 7pm; tickets for men’s matches will be valid for women’s fixtures also
PCB to utilise matches to celebrate International Women’s Day, create awareness about breast cancer and promote women’s empowerment
Some of the world’s leading sport networks to televise the three-match series live; SNTV to distribute Video News Releases (VNRs)
PCB to also live-stream matches and post-match pressers on its PCB and HBL PSL YouTube Channels; will also provide ball-by-ball scoring on its corporate website, action images and match reports
Video interviews of local and foreign internationals, as well as Marina Iqbal, Sana Mir and Urooj Mumtaz, and other Behind-The-Scenes content is available on the PCB YouTube Channel
Series hashtag is #LevelPlayingField