Pakistan's Saadia Zahidi Leads World Economic Forum's Gender Parity Effort

Pakistan-born, Harvard-educated economist Ms. Saadia Zahidi, author of "50 Million Rising", is currently a member of the executive committee and the head of Education, Gender and Work at the World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland. She told Kai Ryssdal of APR Marketplace of her visit to a gas field in Pakistan with her geophysicist father where she met Nazia, a woman engineer who inspired her.

Saadia Zahidi

The "50 Million" in the title of her book refers to the 50 million Muslim women who have joined the work force over the last 15 years bringing the total number of working women in the Muslim world to about 155 million.

In her book, Saadia talks about her father being the first in his family to go to university. He believed in girls' education and career opportunities. She recalls him suggesting that "my sister could become a pilot because the Pakistan Air Force had just starting to train women. Another time he speculated that I could become a news anchor because Pakistan Television, the state-owned television network, had started recruiting more women".  Here's an excerpt of her book:

"This shift has not been limited to Pakistan. A quiet but powerful tsunami of working women has swept across the Muslim world. In all, 155 million women work in the Muslim world today, and fifty million of them--a full third--have joined the work force since the turn of the millennium alone, a formidable migration from home to work in the span of less than a generation".

Saadia Zahidi has devoted parts of her book to her experiences in Pakistan where she visited a McDonald's restaurant and found many women working there. A woman also named Saadia working at McDonald's restaurant in Rawalpindi is featured in the book. Here's an excerpt:

"For young women like Saadia, seeing their efforts rewarded in the workplace, just as they were in school and university, can be eye-opening and thrilling and lead them to become even more motivated to work. The independent income is an almost unexpected bonus. I asked Saadia how she spends her earnings and whether she saves. She gives 30 percent of her income to her parents, she said, and the rest she spends as she pleases: mostly on gifts to her parents, sisters, and friends as well as on lunches and dinners out with friends and gadgets like her cell phone—all new luxuries for her. She said that she has no interest in saving because her parents take care of housing and food, just as she expects her husband will do after she marries. So her disposable income is wholly hers to spend, allowing her to contribute to the household budget while also buying luxuries that were previously unimaginable for her parents, without adding a burden to them."

Challenging the stereotypes about Muslim women, Saadia cites an interesting statistic: In Saudi Arabia, out of all of the women that could be going to university, 50 percent are. And that is higher than in China, in India, in Mexico, in Brazil.

I wrote a post titled "Working Women Seeding a Silent Revolution in Pakistan" in 2011. It's reproduced below in full:

While Fareed Zakaria, Nick Kristoff and other talking heads are still stuck on the old stereotypes of Muslim women, the status of women in Muslim societies is rapidly changing, and there is a silent social revolution taking place with rising number of women joining the workforce and moving up the corporate ladder in Pakistan.



"More of them(women) than ever are finding employment, doing everything from pumping gasoline and serving burgers at McDonald’s to running major corporations", says a report in the latest edition of Businessweek magazine.



Beyond company or government employment, there are a number of NGOs focused on encouraging self-employment and entrepreneurship among Pakistani women by offering skills training and microfinancing. Kashf Foundation led by a woman CEO and BRAC are among such NGOs. They all report that the success and repayment rate among female borrowers is significantly higher than among male borrowers.



In rural Sindh, the PPP-led government is empowering women by granting over 212,864 acres of government-owned agriculture land to landless peasants in the province. Over half of the farm land being given is prime nehri (land irrigated by canals) farm land, and the rest being barani or rain-dependent. About 70 percent of the 5,800 beneficiaries of this gift are women. Other provincial governments, especially the Punjab government have also announced land allotment for women, for which initial surveys are underway, according to ActionAid Pakistan.



Both the public and private sectors are recruiting women in Pakistan's workplaces ranging from Pakistani military, civil service, schools, hospitals, media, advertising, retail, fashion industry, publicly traded companies, banks, technology companies, multinational corporations and NGOs, etc.



Here are some statistics and data that confirm the growth and promotion of women in Pakistan's labor pool:

1. A number of women have moved up into the executive positions, among them Unilever Foods CEO Fariyha Subhani, Engro Fertilizer CFO Naz Khan, Maheen Rahman CEO of IGI Funds and Roshaneh Zafar Founder and CEO of Kashf Foundation.

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

3. Female employment at KFC in Pakistan has risen 125 percent in the past five years, according to a report in the NY Times.

4. The number of women working at McDonald’s restaurants and the supermarket behemoth Makro has quadrupled since 2006.



5. There are now women taxi drivers in Pakistan. Best known among them is Zahida Kazmi described by the BBC as "clearly a respected presence on the streets of Islamabad".



6. Several women fly helicopters and fighter jets in the military and commercial airliners in the state-owned and private airlines in Pakistan.

Here are a few excerpts from the recent Businessweek story written by Naween Mangi:

About 22 percent of Pakistani females over the age of 10 now work, up from 14 percent a decade ago, government statistics show. Women now hold 78 of the 342 seats in the National Assembly, and in July, Hina Rabbani Khar, 34, became Pakistan’s first female Foreign Minister. “The cultural norms regarding women in the workplace have changed,” says Maheen Rahman, 34, chief executive officer at IGI Funds, which manages some $400 million in assets. Rahman says she plans to keep recruiting more women for her company.

Much of the progress has come because women stay in school longer. More than 42 percent of Pakistan’s 2.6 million high school students last year were girls, up from 30 percent 18 years ago. Women made up about 22 percent of the 68,000 students in Pakistani universities in 1993; today, 47 percent of Pakistan’s 1.1 million university students are women, according to the Higher Education Commission. Half of all MBA graduates hired by Habib Bank, Pakistan’s largest lender, are now women. “Parents are realizing how much better a lifestyle a family can have if girls work,” says Sima Kamil, 54, who oversees 1,400 branches as head of retail banking at Habib. “Every branch I visit has one or two girls from conservative backgrounds,” she says.

Some companies believe hiring women gives them a competitive advantage. Habib Bank says adding female tellers has helped improve customer service at the formerly state-owned lender because the men on staff don’t want to appear rude in front of women. And makers of household products say female staffers help them better understand the needs of their customers. “The buyers for almost all our product ranges are women,” says Fariyha Subhani, 46, CEO of Unilever Pakistan Foods, where 106 of the 872 employees are women. “Having women selling those products makes sense because they themselves are the consumers,” she says.

To attract more women, Unilever last year offered some employees the option to work from home, and the company has run an on-site day-care center since 2003. Engro, which has 100 women in management positions, last year introduced flexible working hours, a day-care center, and a support group where female employees can discuss challenges they encounter. “Today there is more of a focus at companies on diversity,” says Engro Fertilizer CFO Khan, 42. The next step, she says, is ensuring that “more women can reach senior management levels.”







The gender gap in South Asia remains wide, and women in Pakistan still face significant obstacles. But there is now a critical mass of working women at all levels showing the way to other Pakistani women.

I strongly believe that working women have a very positive and transformational impact on society by having fewer children, and by investing more time, money and energies for better nutrition, education and health care of their children. They spend 97 percent of their income and savings on their families, more than twice as much as men who spend only 40 percent on their families, according to Zainab Salbi, Founder, Women for Women International, who recently appeared on CNN's GPS with Fareed Zakaria.

Here's an interesting video titled "Redefining Identity" about Pakistan's young technologists, including women, posted by Lahore-based 5 Rivers Technologies:



Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Status of Women in Pakistan

Microfinancing in Pakistan

Gender Gap Worst in South Asia

Status of Women in India

Female Literacy Lags in South Asia

Land For Landless Women

Are Women Better Off in Pakistan Today?

Growing Insurgency in Swat

Religious Leaders Respond to Domestic Violence

Fighting Agents of Intolerance

A Woman Speaker: Another Token or Real Change

A Tale of Tribal Terror

Mukhtaran Mai-The Movie

World Economic Forum Survey of Gender Gap

Views: 2689

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 25, 2018 at 8:09am

Carpenters Challenge Notions Of '#Women's Work' In Pakistan. Dozens of women in northern #Pakistan have learned #carpentry skills as part of a #training program to make them financially independent. #vocation https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-women-carpenters/29562991.html

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 25, 2018 at 8:36pm

#Pakistani #Hindu women in #Thar determined to change destiny through #CPEC. #China #Coal #Power https://nation.com.pk/26-Oct-2018/pakistani-women-determined-to-cha...

"It made me believe in miracles," said 24-year-old Lata Mai who drives a 60-ton dump truck in a coal-based power plant in Thar desert of Pakistan's south Sindh province, a project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

READ MORE: Ethiopia appoints Africa's only female president
Belonging to an area where women are usually underprivileged and less educated, Mai dared to dream big.

The childhood dream of Mai, now the mother of two, was to drive a vehicle on the barren road of Thar. But she knew it was a fancy thinking that would probably never be realized, until one day her husband brought a pamphlet home which said that the Thar coal project was hiring women to drive trucks.

Mai, who had never shared her dream with anyone, hesitantly expressed her wish to apply for the post.

Her husband merely laughed at the idea, but after seeing her determination, he agreed to support her.

READ MORE: Everything feels in rhythm, says Curry after 51-point night
Naseem Memon of Sindh Engro Mining company, a member of the committee that hired Mai and dozens of other young women in Thar, told Xinhua that the women drivers are undergoing a 10-month training and will get behind the wheel in December.

"Unlike other sectors, in a coal project, most of the mining jobs are related to truck driving. When we observed that women in Thar walk two to three miles a day in temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius, we believed that if we bring them to job sector, they can do wonders. We were right, they did not disappoint us, they are more hardworking than their male counterparts," said Memon.



"You can imagine how CPEC has changed the lives of these women in a far flung desert of Pakistan. Women, who were utterly dependent on men, are now freely driving heavy dump trucks."

Kiran Sidhwani, a young woman living in the Thar desert, also witnessed a surprising turn in her life after she got a job opportunity in the Thar coal power project.

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"She is a young university graduate who is working as an electrical engineer with us. Apart from Sidhwani, we have also hired a female civil engineer who will join work after completing her training," Memon told Xinhua.

Pakistan's Minister for Human Rights Shireen Mazari said earlier this week that when CPEC moves beyond road construction to enter into the building process of economic zones, the standard of workforce will be raised in the country.

"As special economic zones are coming to play, multinational enterprises will bring corporate social responsibility with them. With the bringing in of great corporate social responsibility, we will see the rise and improvement in the standard of workforce, including the women workforce," said the minister.

According to the latest study of CPEC Center of Excellence, CPEC has the potential to create around 1.2 million jobs through the currently agreed projects, and the number may go up with the inclusion of new projects under its long term plan.

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The CPEC projects, including energy projects, infrastructure projects, Gwadar Port and industrial cooperation proposed under special economic zones in different provinces of the country, will immensely help reduce the unemployment rate in the country.

Analysts believe that female employment rate in CPEC is low at this stage as the project mainly offers blue collar jobs, but with the development of economic zones, more white collar job opportunities will be offered and more women workforce will take part in it.

A primary school has been established in Gwadar where 498 students including 348 girls are provided quality education to enable them to reap the benefits of CPEC-related projects in the Gwadar port.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 3, 2019 at 10:34am
ProPakistani@ProPakistaniPK

Pakistan's Fastest Female Athlete is the Daughter of an Imam - https://propakistani.pk/2019/01/02/pakistans-fastest-female-athlete-is-the-daughter-of-an-imam/ 

View image on Twitter

20 people are talking about this

Despite the strong will, they do face some practical challenges. Both Asra and Alam Khan were vocal about the poor sports training facilities in Pakistan and the lack of government support, with Asra calling sports infrastructure in the country not at par with neighbouring countries like India or Bangladesh.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 8, 2019 at 4:11pm

Rising voices of #women in #Pakistan. Pakistan’s last #elections saw an increase of 3.8 million newly registered women voters. Dramatic increase follows a 2017 law requiring at least 10% female voter turnout to legitimize each district’s count. https://on.natgeo.com/2GcdyGg via @NatGeo

Many rural women are not registered for their National Identity Cards, a requirement not only to vote but also to open a bank account and get a driver’s license. In Pakistan, many women in rural and tribal areas have not been able to do these things with or without the card. In accordance with patriarchal customs and family pressures, they live in the privacy of their homes without legal identities.

Yet Pakistan’s July 2018 elections saw an increase of 3.8 million newly registered women voters. The dramatic increase follows a 2017 law requiring at least a 10 percent female voter turnout to legitimize each district’s count. Pakistan has allowed women to vote since 1956, yet it ranks among the last in the world in female election participation.

The remote tribal area that borders Afghanistan, formally called the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwestern Pakistan, has traditionally been least tolerant of women in public spaces, some women activists say. Yet registration in 2018 increased by 66 percent from 2013. This rise in women’s votes is a victory for women like Khaliq, who are fighting for women’s inclusion and equality in Pakistan, especially among marginalized communities in rural and tribal areas.

Encouraging more women to vote is only the beginning. Women themselves disagree over what their role should be in Pakistani society. The patriarchal, conservative mainstream dismisses feminism as a Western idea threatening traditional social structures. Those who advocate for equality between women and men – the heart of feminism – are fighting an uphill battle. They face pushback from the state, religious institutions, and, perhaps most jarringly, other women.

There are different kinds of activists among women in Pakistan. Some are secular, progressive women like Rukhshanda Naz, who was fifteen years old when she first went on a hunger strike. She was the youngest daughter of her father’s twelve children, and wanted to go to an all-girls’ boarding school against his wishes. It took one day of activism to convince her father, but her family members objected again when she wanted to go to law school. “My brother said he would kill himself,” she said. Studying law meant she’d sit among men outside of her family, which would be dishonorable to him. Her brother went to Saudi Arabia for work. Naz got her law degree, became a human rights lawyer, opened a women’s shelter in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and worked as resident director of the Aurat Foundation, one of Pakistan’s leading organizations for women’s rights. She is also the UN Women head for the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 18, 2019 at 4:18pm

Major General Nigar Johar Khan of the Medical Corps is only the 3rd female to rise to the 2-star general rank in Pakistan Army. She hails from a Pashtun family and is from KPK province.


https://www.geo.tv/latest/240720-nigar-johar-khan-becomes-third-wom...




Major General Nigar Johar Khan has become the third woman in Pakistan's history to hold the rank of a major general in the Pakistan Army, according to Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari.

Mazari shared a picture of Maj Gen Nigar Khan, adding the caption: "Respect. #womenempowerment".

"She is a two-star general in Pak Army’s Medical Corps. Apart from being a doc, she is a sharp shooter too," Qamar explained.

"Pak has shown that, it is committed to gender equality and women empowerment. Gender specific jobs assigned by the ancient patriarchy are now adapting to the realities of 21st century," she added.

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 22, 2019 at 4:59pm

Amjad Ali, #Karachi rickshaw driver, father of six daughters sending them all to school in #Pakistan. One of his daughter Muskan just won a scholarship to study at top #business school. #education #highereducation https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=2019062115073239

https://twitter.com/haqsmusings/status/1142580970215788544

In a country where many women are still discouraged from getting an education and are married off early, Amjad Ali, a father of six daughters, and a rickshaw driver, has broken the mould by sending his daughters to Karachi’s leading universities, reports Samaa TV.

“People often mocked and criticised me, saying that girls are bound to get married and move out and to stop wasting my hard-earned money on my daughters,” he said. 

But one of his daughters, Muskan, recently received a scholarship from the Institute of Business Administration, which is one of the top business schools in the country. “It was one of the happiest days of my life,” he said. “Be it a son or a daughter, the right to education is equal for all,” he believes.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 16, 2019 at 8:50am

In Pakistan, it’s middle class rising
S. Akbar Zaidi

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/in-pakistan-its-middle-class-...

he general perception still, and unfortunately, held by many people, foreigners and Pakistanis, is that Pakistan is largely an agricultural, rural economy, where “feudals” dominate the economic, social, and particularly political space. Nothing could be further from this outdated, false framing of Pakistan’s political economy. Perhaps the single most significant consequence of the social and structural transformation under way for the last two decades has been the rise and consolidation of a Pakistani middle class, both rural, but especially, urban.

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

Girls shining
Data based on social, economic and spatial categories all support this argument. While literacy rates in Pakistan have risen to around 60%, perhaps more important has been the significant rise in girls’ literacy and in their education. Their enrolment at the primary school level, while still less than it is for boys, is rising faster than it is for boys. What is even more surprising is that this pattern is reinforced even for middle level education where, between 2002-03 and 2012-13, there had been an increase by as much as 54% when compared to 26% for that of boys. At the secondary level, again unexpectedly, girls’ participation has increased by 53% over the decade, about the same as it has for boys. While boys outnumber girls in school, girls are catching up. In 2014-15, it was estimated that there were more girls enrolled in Pakistan’s universities than boys — 52% and 48%, respectively. Pakistan’s middle class has realised the significance of girls’ education, even up to the college and university level.

In spatial terms, most social scientists would agree that Pakistan is almost all, or at least predominantly, urban rather than rural, even though such categories are difficult to concretise. Research in Pakistan has revealed that at least 70% of Pakistanis live in urban or urbanising settlements, and not in rural settlements, whatever they are. Using data about access to urban facilities and services such as electricity, education, transport and communication connectivity, this is a low estimate. Moreover, even in so-called “rural” and agricultural settlements, data show that around 60% or more of incomes accrue from non-agricultural sources such as remittances and services. Clearly, whatever the rural is, it is no longer agricultural. Numerous other sets of statistics would enhance the middle class thesis in Pakistan.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 3, 2019 at 11:02am

Female Empowerment in Pakistan
ON NOVEMBER 1, 2019

https://www.borgenmagazine.com/female-empowerment-in-pakistan/


UNDP Supports High Altitude Farming
In the Pakistan territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, harsh mountain terrain makes it difficult for families to grow enough food to support themselves. It becomes especially difficult in the winter. In response, UNDP came up with a solution that helps tackle food insecurity and empower women. It has provided tunnel farms that are owned and run by local women. Tunnel farms are plastic, hooped greenhouses that protect crops from winter weather. These farms give the region access to fresh vegetables throughout all seasons.

By placing the tunnel farms in the hands of women, UNDP is supporting economic empowerment for women in the region. The women are able to make money for themselves and their families by selling the vegetables they grow in local markets. Between January and April 2019, these women were able to grow approximately 16,500 seedlings in the tunnels. Each tunnel earned approximately $247 for its produce. This income supports women, families and communities. The tunnels are an important step toward greater female empowerment in Pakistan.

UNDP Provides Training to Rural Women
In the Sultan Shah village in the Noshki district of Pakistan, UNDP is taking a different approach to helping women become economically empowered. The district suffers from severe poverty. Women often need to find employment to make ends meet for their families. Due to a lack of employment opportunities in the village, many need to travel long distances to find work.

Bibi Hajra, a recent widow, walked hours each day to be a domestic worker for wealthier families and was still not making enough to adequately support her family. She stated, “The houses where I worked were a long distance away from my own home. Each day, by the time I reached the neighbourhood, I was already exhausted — my actual job of cleaning the houses still lay ahead of me,” she said.

In response to the difficulties faced by these women, UNDP supported a stitching center to train women in marketable embroidery and sewing skills. Though this initiative is on a fairly small scale, it reflects the importance of addressing the specific needs of women in different contexts. The stitching center has had a significant impact on women in the Sultan Shah village. Bibi Hajra now making enough money to adequately support her family without traveling.

U.N. Women Fights for Equal Employment Opportunities
U.N. Women is also committed to supporting female empowerment in Pakistan. Recently, they worked with the local energy company Engro Energy Limited (EEL) to ensure equal employment opportunities for women in Sindh, Pakistan. Being rich in natural resources, there has been a lot of development for local energy companies over the past few years. This has increased employment opportunities for both men and women. Women are now working “unconventional” jobs, including transport, entrepreneurship and engineering.

EEL has committed to supporting female employment by signing the “Women’s Empowerment Principles.” These principles formally agree to help women participate fully and equally in the job force. It is important to note that the company had already set a precedent for supporting women and giving them equal job opportunities. Many women have been working as truck drivers for the company. The agreement is another way to continuing EEL’s commitment.

One woman, Rukhsana, has benefited greatly from truck driving. She stated, “Through this driving training, I gained the strength and courage to face the world,” She added that the income has had a significant impact on her family’s well being, allowing her sons to attend school. She hopes to provide them will better opportunities in the future by enabling them to go to college. EEL hopes to recruit more female truck drivers and give them an opportunity to become economically empowered.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 21, 2019 at 7:49pm

BISP, Citizenship and Rights Claims in Pakistan


By Rehan Rafay Jamil


https://researchcollective.blogspot.com/2019/03/bisp-citizenship-an...


Taking Stock of Ten Years of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP)

Over ten years since its establishment, the Benazir Income Support Progamme (BISP) has become Pakistan’s largest social safety net, providing coverage to over 5.6 million women and their households across the country. The expansion of BISP over the past decade marks an important shift in social policy in Pakistan. BISP has now been overseen by three elected governments and has resulted in a significant increase in federal fiscal allocations for social protection. Despite vocal reservations about its name expressed by some political parties, the program remains Pakistan’s largest flagship poverty alleviation program with international recognition.[1]

Third party impact evaluations of BISP have largely focused on its poverty alleviation, nutritional and gender empowerment impacts.[2] [3] These evaluations point to important reductions in poverty and improved nutritional levels for beneficiaries and their households. Oxford Policy Management’s 2016 evaluation finds reductions in BISP households’ reliance on casual labor and an increase in household savings and asset accumulation.[3]

BISP is one of the largest cash transfer programs targeted exclusively at women in the Global South, making the gender impacts of BISP important to understand. In their evaluation, Ambler and De Brauw (2017) find some changes in gender norms and attitudes amongst beneficiaries and their families. Their study finds that female beneficiaries are more likely to have greater mobility to visit friends without their spouse’s permission, are less likely to tolerate domestic violence and male members are more likely to contribute to household work.

BISP and the transition from Cash Transfer Beneficiaries to Citizens

The evaluation reports provide some evidence that BISP has also had a wider set of intended and unintended consequences in influencing beneficiaries’ access to public institutions and spaces. Perhaps the most frequently cited impact of BISP has been a marked increase in rural women’s access to computerized national identity cards (CNICs), a prerequisite for obtaining the program. CNICs can be seen as the first step to citizenship and rights claims in Pakistan. The most significant impact of the rapid increase in CNIC registration amongst BISP beneficiaries has been with regards to voting. Ambler and De Brauw (2017) find evidence that BISP beneficiaries are more likely to vote in national elections. But whether BISP beneficiaries are empowered by the cash transfer to make a wider set of rights claims and access local state services, is less clear.

In order to understand some of the changes brought about by BISP in the lives of rural women, I conducted qualitative field work, including in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with beneficiaries and their spouses, in the district of Thatta in Lower Sindh. Thatta has a high proportion of BISP beneficiaries (47 percent), being a high poverty district. The aim of the fieldwork was to develop an understanding of how beneficiaries and their families perceive of BISP and whether the program has brought about any changes in their engagement with local state services.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 27, 2020 at 10:52pm

#Pakistan's younger are #women riding a #digital wave in drive for better jobs....50% of the graduates, a majority of whom are women, have found work in #software companies. https://reut.rs/3bInRhf

When Kianat Naz joined a women-friendly technology boot camp a year ago, she had no idea it would completely change her life and her views on how women can work in conservative Pakistan.

Naz, 22, had never ventured far from her home in Orangi Town in Karachi, one of the five largest slums of the world, but was feeling dissatisfied with her current teaching job.

So she signed up for tech programme called TechKaro, an initiative by Circle, a social enterprise that aims to improve women’s economic rights in Pakistan, and is now working fulltime for a software company.

Naz said the course was challenging in many ways but she soon found that the women on the training were just as good as the men at tech skills like coding, web development and digital marketing, and also at presenting themselves at interviews.

“From developing our CVs, to giving us tips on dressing for work, to conducting ourselves during an interview and how to battle some sticky questions ... we were groomed for everything,” said Naz.

Women make up about 25% of Pakistan’s labour force, one of the lowest in the region, according to the World Bank.

It has set a target to increase this to 45%, calling for more childcare and a crackdown on sexual harassment to encourage more women out to work and boost economic growth.

In Pakistan, women represent only 14% of the IT workforce, according to a 2012 study by P@SHA, the Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS).

GAP IN THE MARKET
Sadaffe Abid, chief executive of Circle, set up TechKaro with the help of a few private foundations in 2018 seeing this gender gap, and took on 50 trainees in the first year of which 62% were women and 75 in 2019 including 66% women.

Abid, who previously worked for a micro-finance institution, said she was delighted that women like Naz were proving that women could succeed in the tech world.

“I am a firm believer that one of the most powerful uses of technology is to bring it to young women, especially from under-served communities, to unlock their talents, resourcefulness and creativity,” said Abid.

“People told me I won’t find women, or women will drop out in high numbers, or after completing the course, women won’t find employment as the industry will not be open to hiring this unique diverse group with no degree in computer science.

“But I would say 50% of the graduates, a majority of whom are women, have found work in software companies,” said Abid, who also brought She Loves Tech to Pakistan, one of the world’s largest women and startup competitions globally.

TechKaro is one of the latest programmes in the country aimed at helping women crack the traditionally male domain.

CodeGirls Pakistan, a Karachi-based boot camp, trains girls from middle and low-income families in coding and business skills.

In 2017, a six-week camp SheSkills taught women everything from web development and digital design to social media marketing.

After attending the TechKaro course, Naz found work earlier this year at an IT company earning double the salary she was getting as a teacher but which meant leaving her neighbourhood, using public transport, and working side-by-side with men.

“I had never ventured out on my own and I was dead scared the first time I had to do it, but now it is just fine,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation said in an interview by telephone from Orangi Town.

“The rest of Karachi is not quite the big bad wolf I’d imagined it to be,” said Naz who navigated an app-based transit startup to reduce her travel time by two hours a day.

“It gave me a lot of confidence when I asked my employers if they would have a problem with my wearing the niqab (a veil that fully covers the face) and they said they were only interested in my work performance.”

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