Interview: Zohra Yusuf

“Win or lose, what is important is that you put up a fight” – Zohra Yusuf, Council Member, HRCP Calm and soft-spoken with a will of steel, Zohra Yusuf’s diminutive frame belies a towering soul that has covered immense ground as a journalist, an advertising guru and a human rights defender. In the early 1980s, …

Interview: Justice (retd) Majida Razvi

Interview: Justice (retd) Majida Razvi, the first woman judge to the Sindh High Court Bench in 1994 broke the glass ceiling that had been firmly held by men for 47 years. But that distinction constitutes only a fraction of Razvi’s achievements. Along with her distinguished career as a judge and earlier as an advocate, she has been a tireless activist, writing extensively on legal rights and women’s issues. Her legal career spans over 35 years with the High Courts and later the Supreme Court.

The Good Samaritans: Volunteerism in Pakistan

By Deneb Sumbul There is dearth of volunteerism is Pakistan but, by and large, it is scattered and disorganised. . Last year, in one of the worst heat waves in living memory, 2,000 people died in Karachi due to dehydration and heat stroke in what was a massive civil administration failure. It was civil society – …

Mushtaq Chhapra: The Game Changer

By Deneb Sumbul A successful industrialist, Mushtaq Chhapra also epitomises the spirit of social welfare. As the Panama Papers scandal reverberated around the globe, it exposed in its wake the stashed millions of hundreds of Pakistan’s leading business/political figures and of their offspring in an offshore tax haven. That is one end of the spectrum. …

Prisoners of Gender

By Deneb Sumbul   “Going by the statistics, each day 12 women suffer rape in the “land of the pure,” according to a statement released by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on 18 April, 2016. Which means that a rape occurs every two hours in Pakistan. In April 2016, a jirga in the Ghulam …

Women of Fire

By Deneb Sumbul To celebrate International Women’s Day, Tehrik-e-Niswan’s conference themed, ‘No More Violence – Women Rising,’ at the Karachi Arts Council on March 8 was attended by a 700-strong, mostly female audience. The women – teachers, students, nurses, midwives, politicians and social activists – came from various parts of the city, dressed in orange. …

Keeping the Flame Alight

  April 24 of 2016 will bring us to Sabeen Mehmood’s first death anniversary. The brutal murder of the creator/director of T2F – a prominent personality at many forums – left a loss felt deeply by civil society. Uncertainty prevailed after her passing and there was talk of having to close down T2F – one …

Scarred Souls

There is little hope for timely justice for victims of acid crimes when provincial governments delay the framing and implementation of laws. It was Eid night, July 18. Raheela Kaziali, a pretty 19-year-old intermediate student from Gulshan Town, had just returned home from the market with her family. She and her brother were trying to open …

Interview: Dr Ghazala Rahman Rafiq

In her highly compact office, Dr. Ghazala Rahman Rafiq, Director of The Sindh Abhyas Academy (SAA), seems to disappear into the shelves, laden with books, looming large behind her. The petite, soft-spoken professor initiated the SAA and introduced the much needed, specialised subject of Sindh Studies in SZABIST in 2012.   Dr. Rahman Rafiq is …

WOW-ed Festival Karachi

WOW-ed Festival Karachi By Deneb Sumbul On May 1 this year, Karachi had the distinction of being the first South Asian city to host the Women of the World (WOW) festival, celebrating women. Held at the Beach Luxury Hotel with the support of The British Council and London’s Southbank Centre, the one-day event with free …