There was a time when organized student groups used to rule in Punjab University while clashes between students were a common routine, which often became violent.
Such clashes, in result, hampered the educational environment on the campus and also made the female students suffer due to the situation, said Sabiha Shaheen, while recalling memories of her university days 25 years ago.
She talked to Minute Mirror exclusively on the eve of International Women’s Day, which is being celebrated today across the globe.
Shaheen, who laid foundation of renowned youth organization Bargad 25 years ago, said that campus environments at that time was biased toward female students and that provoked her to take a step to unite the students to raise their voice for their rights.
She said that we needed interactions to learn from each other and do activities but we were deprived from availing such opportunities on campus. “Besides this, women were also facing pressure of society to get higher education and that was a major hurdle before them in achieving their goals,” said Shaheen while saying that to gather like-minded students on a platform had become inevitable.
“I contacted my friends studying in different universities and colleges, encouraged them to be united against the supremacy of such violent groups in different educational institutions,” she said, adding that on her voice she got positive response from her friends and they supported her cause.
Now, Shaheen said that the situation had changed a lot on campuses and was improving and it could be said that this was the outcome of efforts they started under the banner of Bargad.
“Woman of our society is not less than compared to those in the modern world. Whenever they get opportunity they show extra ordinary performance in various fields,” Shaheen said, saying that the real thing was that a woman would have to decide what she wanted to do. “If she has decided to achieve anything, she must go behind her goal,” she said, adding that families should support their women in achieving their goals.
While conducting seminars to empower women, she said besides encouraging girls, she focused on sensitizing the families, so that they could help their girls. “Bagad through its campaigns is aimed at training and developing leadership qualities in youth, particularly women. It has trained hundreds of thousands girls across the country since it was formed,” she added.
Shaheen said that women were an integral part of any society and no society could move ahead unless they were strengthened. “We have contributed in youth policies in three provinces and these focused on women education and sexual violence against them,” she said.
Though government was making policies to empower women, she said that we still had to do a lot as women still faced discrimination in our society. “There are certain cases where women face discrimination at workplace as they are less paid than males,” she said, saying, “I think things like this must be eradicated because they leave worst impacts on a woman’s capabilities.”
Shaheen is an active member of an umbrella organization, the Women Action Forum (WAF) and chairperson of the Lahore chapter of All Women Economic Forum. She has extensive experience in training youth, university, community leaders and school teachers. She is one of the founding members of Bargad, under which she led over 100 short and long-term projects in collaboration with more than 64 higher education institutions of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan and 40 colleges and 30 religious seminaries.
