SAHIWAL: A woman has been running chicken sale point for more than two decades - a business very few women dare to enter.

Thanks to financial constraints, women do odd jobs like sales, marketing and vending but one can’t find many around selling chicken.

Anwar Baji sells chicken on Sahiwal’s Karbala Road, and deals with customers with a confidence.

“This is my family business though all others involved are men,” she says.

“I started the business 23 years ago and initially faced many problems like dealing with all manner of customers but now I face no such difficulty and earn enough to feed my family,” she says. She says the customers and chicken selling community respect her.

She says she has a good business now and her customers include those who take chicken meat to Lahore. “They laud me because of clean cutting and overall cleanliness,” she says.

Her husband Mahmood Ahmed and three nephews are into the chicken selling business.

“I wanted to do business to assist my husband and augment income. Furthermore, I believe women must be economically independent and not always be dependent on husbands.”

She recalls she used to work and play like boys in childhood and was the only girl who would go to school by a bicycle. I even learnt how to drive a motorcycle and now I do whole business on bike.

Some customers, she says, frequently buy chicken from her and “I consider them my family members”. There are many who want meat delivered at home and I don’t mind providing the service, she says.

Anwar Baji, who has four children, has to cope with many issues especially taunts of pranksters and misbehaviour by some rude customers but she holds her own and vows to carry on.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2015

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