Published on, Aug. 22 -- August 22, 2025 8:54 AM

Every morning, women in Pakistan step out to earn a living and negotiate a map of hazards that men rarely see. They weigh the risk of a supervisor's "joke," of a client's unwanted touch, of a commute that can turn hostile. They do this in an economy where the female labour force participation rate hovers near one in four women of working age, among the lowest in South Asia, according to World Bank and ILO estimates. The wider gender context is stark. In June, the World Economic Forum ranked Pakistan last of 148 countries on its Global Gender Gap Index, with 56.7 per cent parity across economic, education, health and political indicators.

That is the landscape against which the K-Electric ...