How Women on Wheels programme is making Pakistani women more independent "I hope this will change my life because I am dependent on my brother to pick me up and drop me off at college," says student LAHORE: Laiba Rashid, a 22-year-old student, hopes her life will change once she learns how to drive a motorcycle after undergoing a training programme that teaches women how to operate two-wheelers in Punjab's capital Lahore. Although the programme is 7 years old, it's rare to see women driving motorcycles. Women driving cars or riding pillion on two-wheelers driven by a male relative is more socially acceptable.
"I hope this will change my life because I am dependent on my brother to pick me up and drop me off at college," Rashid told Reuters on her first day at the WOW driving programme. She said she wanted to buy a motorcycle to go to college, adding that, previously, there were no women drivers in her family. "Now everybody is convinced that women should be independent in their movement to schools, jobs and markets," Rashid said.
Women driving two-wheelers has been a cultural taboo, said Bushra Iqbal Hussain, a social activist and director of Safe Childhood, an organisation advocating the safety of female children. But more women are now changing the culture, she said, as they did in the 1980s with regular cars, in a bid to reduce their reliance on men to commute. The WOW programme has been in operation since 2017 but has become increasingly popular in recent months as car pr.
