KARACHI: The mobility patterns of women are quite different to men as are the challenges women face in terms of access, comfort and safety. These observations emerged during a workshop titled ‘Mobility from the lens of gender: case study Karachi’ arranged by Shehri-Citizens for a Better Environment (CBE) on Tuesday.

“Sometimes when my father would be out of town or he couldn’t be there to drop me off to college, I would take the bus in which there was this women’s enclosure with bars in the front portion where no male would enter,” said Amra Javed of Shehri during her welcome address. “With no facility for mass transit in our city now, we see the men come into that area specified for women when they run out of space in the rest of the bus,” she added.

‘Women’s travel patterns different from men’

Examining mobility in different ways, urban planner Farhan Anwar said that when speaking of inclusivity, they plan to bring in the most marginalised and discriminated against people into the fold.

He said that the travel patterns of women differ from men in many ways. “Women are likely to travel shorter distances than men, they are most likely to use public transportation, they engage in more non-work travel outside rush hours, they make more multi-stop trips, they run household errands and escort other passengers who may be children or the elderly and they tend to be safer drivers than men,” he said, listing some female mobility traits.

Participants in a workshop suggest increasing seating capacity in buses and use of public bicycles for women

Speaking about these gender-based differences in travel patterns, he said that according to most studies, gender differences in travel patterns are mainly accounted for by the division of roles in the labour market and the family which effect women employment conditions, income levels and mobility needs.

Researcher Kashmala Tahir said that their aim was to make transport sustainable, both environmentally and financially. She said that transport services were not, and should not be considered as gender neutral. She went on to explain the what, why and how of gender mobility.

“Gender mainstreaming requires that the implications of any project is assessed by a gendered lens because as mentioned already, the travel patterns differ between the genders, there are different professional and social responsibilities and social and cultural limitations,” she said, adding that designing a sustainable transport system for women they need to take into consideration the different and complex travel patterns of different genders.

Women facing harassment in public transport

“There are women who are basically workers, there are women who go to offices and there are students ... the kind of transport they use depends on their respective incomes. There are complaints from them of harassment, long-distance walking to reach the bus stop, changing two to three buses due to which they feel drained by the time they reach their destinations, which hurts their productivity,” she said, adding that it was true that women, especially students, face harassment, mugging and theft, etc, when using public transport.

“There is also no government regulation of fare, hence there is exploitation there as well. Bus drivers also don’t care to stop at the designated stops as they may be racing each other. If the women travel by Qingqi rickshaw, there are the dangers of travelling that way as well,” she said.

Architect Hira Zuberi and her team comprising Aala Siddiqui, Bushra Saleem and Hiba Shoaib walked the workshop participants through the different stages of the ‘Her city and stories’ project of playground at Habib University followed by brainstorming sessions on charting a roadmap for reforms, summation and way forward.

Some solutions to the issues as discussed during the workshop included better lighting, security patrols in known mugging hotspots and closed-circuit television to make bus stops safe, dedicated women-only modes such as having buses and van services exclusively for women, increasing women seating capacity in buses and introducing the use of public bicycles.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2020