One cold and windy evening I stood at Subzi Mandi, waiting for a bus. Since it was rush hour, buses were loaded with passengers. Being a blind person it was almost impossible for me to board any of them. I decided to stay aside until a less crowded bus came.
Close to me three women were also waiting for a bus. They tried to board each bus that stopped; but the conductor didn’t let them near it, shouting: “Be off, no room for you.”
“We’ve been waiting for a long time,” said the older woman. “Please make some man stand up from the ladies seat section.”
“I don’t have the time to argue,” he replied curtly. “Take a taxi, if you’re in a such a hurry.” The bus sped away.
“How can we hire a taxi?” a younger woman grumbled. “It costs a lot and we don’t have enough money.”
I felt sorry for those poor women who were shivering in the cold. As time passed they grew more and more worried. They had to get home before it was too dark. Men could wait for long periods at night. They could even ask for a ride from a passing vehicle. But not women.
In our society women are ignored in many cases. They are treated as second class citizens and denied their basic rights.
Women usually come out of their homes only when in need. Especially those belonging to poor families who do not have male members. Even when they do, these male members of the family are too young or are out for work. These females are forced to leave their houses for several reasons — seeing a doctor, taking a young child to and from school, bringing groceries and running other important errands. Some women even go to work to help their husbands financially.
It is observed that when one or more young women are out, they are molested in one way or another. Besides hooligans, young men belonging to so called ‘respected and noble families’ make gestures, produce strange voices and whistle at them. Older women are generally ignored and they are rarely helped when in need.
Like many other issues, we also have a transport problem in Karachi. As you know, in our society a man doesn’t share a seat with a woman while riding a bus, the cheapest means of transportation in big cities. Some seats are reserved for female travellers in buses and mini-buses. But during rush hours, these seats are occupied by male travellers in buses, mini-buses, and the woman find it extremely difficult to reach their destination.
I asked some bus conductors the reason. “Well,” one of them said thoughtfully, “woman are slow in boarding and getting off the buses, and that makes us late, missing many passengers from the next stops.” Another said, “When there are some female passengers on board, we can’t have enough male passengers. Thus we are not able to earn as much money for the bus owners as they want. If we earn less money for them, they threaten to fire us.”
I put the same question to a conductor of a government-bus. The conductor, taking me into confidence, said, “Our salaries are not enough to make ends meet. So we want some extra money. We can only get the extra money when the bus is crowded. If a female passenger is sitting on a seat, the rest of it will be unoccupied, as no man can sit there, and we lose our earnings.”
To these earth shattering problems, I put forward a few humble suggestions.
First, the traffic and transportation rules must be strictly followed. It is the duty of the traffic police to see that traffic rules are not violated. If they are, the criminals should be punished.
Male passengers should never sit on a seat reserved for female passengers. If a man does so, it is the moral duty of the fellow passengers to make him stand up and let a lady sit their.
As part of their training, bus drivers and conductors should be instructed to pay due respect to ladies.
And last, but not least, there should be security of jobs for bus conductors and drivers. And they should be paid properly.
If we follow the steps above, sincerely, problems of the female travellers maybe greatly solved. If a bus owner doesn’t act according to the rules, he should be highly fined and punished.
One cold and windy evening I stood at Subzi Mandi, waiting for a bus. Since it was rush hour, buses were loaded with passengers. Being a blind person it was almost impossible for me to board any of them. I decided to stay aside until a less crowded bus came.
