Of all the reasons why women should be included at all levels of policy-making, the fact that 800,000 children die in a year in Pakistan is the most critical one. This country thrives on knee-jerk reactions but has glacial speed when responding to catastrophes. Our family...
Just yesterday I had to go to Islamabad’s largest private hospital to get a vaccination for a tropical country I’ll be travelling to. I went straight from office in my dress pants and an airy orange blouse that flowed below my waist. When I walked in...
Everyday sexism is much tougher to decipher. It’s difficult to call it out because it is cloaked under cultural subtext of humor, satire or plain smart-Alec talk. When women world over are trying to be nuanced about how to put an end to it, here...
It used to be that only a limited number of things would get you honor killed. Like dressing provocatively; having sex outside marriage, being gay, getting raped or renouncing your religion. Now you can get honor killed for helping a friend escape a village to...
The fear of public spaces is called Agoraphobia, but when you have this fear on behalf of a group of women, its called misogyny. Called by another name it is abuse of power; oppression and downright cruel. The Saudis have this fear on behalf of...
It was in 1787 that British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft published a strong case for women’s education in her book: Thoughts On The Education of Daughters. Two and a quarter centuries later in Pakistan, a girl child is shot in the head for advocating for the...
Someone once said that Heera Mandi was the least hypocritical place in Pakistan, as if they were referring to a taskforce or a think tank. Everyone has an opinion on Heera Mandi, the red light district of Lahore, and lately politicians too have brought the...
Pakistan’s foreign office has reacted to the hit US televison show Homeland rather negatively for calling the country a “hellhole”. It has also reacted to the atrocious killing of 100 and more of its children in Peshawar by asking the national media to show more...
Although twice as more men commit suicide in Pakistan than women, it is almost with certainty that one can say the women that do are married. This is according to the ‘The pattern of suicide in Pakistan’ by Murad Moosa Khan and Hashim Reza in...
As if it were not bad enough that Pakistan has always shown a dismal performance when it comes to the gender gap, there is more bad news: it is getting worse, not better, over the years. Either these indicators are being ignored by the people...