Most days, I leave my office at around 5pm, after which it takes roughly half an hour at the bus stop for my bus to arrive. The bus ride itself takes another hour to ninety minutes. From there, it is a 15-minute walk to my house in the Gulistan-i-Johar area of Karachi. The first challenge is to cross the poorly-lit, forever-under-construction University Road, with cars and motorcycles — often without headlights — racing through the operational service lanes.

At the end of a long and arduous day, walking home from the bus stop, I must not only be wary of speeding vehicles, but also of criminals, opportunistic harassers and serial stalkers. Exacerbating this daily grind are hazards such as flooded roads — after rainfall or otherwise — where speeding vehicles may splash pedestrians, leaving them wet, exposed and helpless. What may seem like a minor inconvenience to a driver can become a deeply uncomfortable and humiliating moment for a pedestrian.

These experiences led me to ask other women about their journeys.

Those who took part in this informal survey use different modes of public transportation, including mini-buses, qingchis, electric buses, and other informal transport services. Their backgrounds and experiences vary, depending on factors such as their occupation, age, income, the areas they travel to and the time of day. They include people working in offices, banks, schools, hospitals, shops and factories, while others are domestic workers employed in private homes.

Their stories reveal how concerns about safety persist throughout the journey — and do not end when women get off public transport.

Long waits, overcrowded buses and unsafe infrastructure are only part of the daily commute........

© Dawn (Magazines)