By Pakistan Ink Staff (Sana Malik/Minaal Shamimi/Zainab Saeed/Shehzil Zahid/Shizza Hashmi)
Islamabad — For International Women’s Day, Pakistan Ink reporters reached out to Pakistani women from different walks of life and asked them about the major challenges women face in the country and the social change women would like to see in Pakistan to make women’s lives better.
READ: Part II and Part III of our series on International Women’s Day
Here are some of the responses we received (some replies have been edited for clarity):
“As an engineer, I always thought the answer is so simple. We can use technology in so many ways to make lives of women in Pakistan safer, healthier and better. As I am a woman who lives away from home in a different city just to gain education so that I can stand up for the rights of women, I feel very strongly about security. I feel a woman should be able to walk home safely without the fear of being followed, ogled at, and harassed or worse; things which are extremely common in the Pakistani society. I think it’s important for our health and development and also for our society, that women should at least be allowed that sense of peace and safety. I’ve been working on using technology to make public places safer for women and that is what my Final Year Project is going to be about as well.”
— Malala Khan, student at NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS) and president of SEECS chapter of IEEE Women in Engineering
“We should teach our daughters to speak up for their rights without any fear. ” — Saira Aslam, a housewife from Islamabad
“…in terms of social challenges, I think women’s mobility remains a handicap for them. There is of course a cause and effect relationship and women cannot move and get out of their homes to reach their schools, colleges and workplaces because there is a mindset that prevents that from happening. Since there aren’t many women expressing this need or necessity, there aren’t any transport facilities available. That is one area where I would suggest that the government and non-government sector need to take affirmative action and facilitate the mobility of women. Once we have a critical mass of them on the roads and offices etc. men’s attitudes will start changing. Too many women in the public sphere will not be an odd sight anymore. This is happening in other countries of the region; it should happen here too.”
— Farah Zia, Editor of The News on Sunday. Read her article on steps the government can take to improve mobility for women.
“Reform the education system, conduct awareness campaigns, and have media campaigns to change the dialogue to women’s rights and female equality.” — Zaina Batool, Pakistani student at Germany’s Jacobs University
“In 2014, the World Economic Forum ranked Pakistan as the second worst country in the world in gender equality. Meaning Pakistani women have to face big social challenges. One I would like to talk about is how women don’t get opportunity to practically use their education and they are narrowed down to their house and family. The social pressure is high on women that they need to stay home and take care of the kids and family. Every year from the 100% medical students, 70% are women but not even 30% of them practice. Not only in the field of medicine but almost every field in Pakistan there are more working men than women. In Pakistan the ratio of female to male labor force participation rate is 30%, which is very low compared to United States of America where it is 86%…. Given the opportunity to resolve this issue, the first thing I would do is give every company in Pakistan a quota of women they have to hire. Promote men and women equality at work place. Also we need to change the mindset of our society and show them that women can manage work and housework equally well. Men should be educated properly so they encourage women around them to work in any field in Pakistan.”
— Simra Aziz, sales and marketing professional
PAKISTAN INK 
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