WOW! Riding motorcycles empowers Pakistani women

Pakistani student Laiba Rashid, 22, hopes her life will change once she learns how to ride a motorcycle after undergoing a training programme that teaches women how to operate two-wheelers in the bustling eastern city of Lahore.

Although the programme is 7 years old, it's rare to see women riding motorcycles. Women driving cars or riding the pillion on two-wheelers driven by a male relative is more socially acceptable in the conservative nation.

"I hope this will change my life because I am dependent on my brother to pick me up and drop me to college," Rashid told Reuters on her first day at the Women on Wheels (WOW) driving programme offered free by the Lahore traffic police.

Ishrat Khan practises riding a motorbike while Humaira Rafaqat, a senior traffic warden, observes her during a training session in Lahore.

She said she wants to buy a motorcycle to go to college, adding that, previously, there were no women riders in her family. "Now everybody is convinced that women should be independent in their movement to schools, jobs and markets," she said.

Cultural taboo

Women riding two-wheelers has been a cultural and religious 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, like 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 prices have soared and motorcycles offer a cheaper alternative.

Shumaila Shafiq, 36, a teacher at a private school, rides a motorbike during the motorbike training session.

"Stagnant wage growth and high inflation have eroded the purchasing power of the middle class, leaving motorcycles as the only viable option for many households," said auto sector analyst Muhammad Abrar Polani of investment house Arif Habib Limited.

The cheapest four-wheeler in Pakistan, where the annual GDP per capita is $1,590, costs about 2.3 million rupees ($8,265) compared to about 115,000 rupees for the most affordable China-made two-wheeler.

Quick learners

Sohail Mudassar, a traffic warden, said the WOW programme has trained at least 6,600 women, and Rashid's batch was the 86th since it started.

"Women of different ages and segments of society join our camp," said female trainer Humaira Rafaqat, a senior traffic warden who has trained about 1,000 women. "Young women are quick learners because they are enthusiastic and take risks."

One of them, Ghania Raza, 23, who is pursuing a doctorate in criminology, said learning to ride a two-wheeler gave her a deep sense of achievement and empowerment: "It was like breaking a glass ceiling," she said.

Humaira Rafaqat, a senior traffic warden, teaches women how to ride a bike while wearing an abaya.

Shumaila Shafiq, 36, a mother of three and a part-time fashion designer, said she had been driving her husband's motorcycle to the market and other places after graduating from the programme.

She has designed a special short length abaya, a dress used by conservative Muslim women, to wear while operating the motorcycle.

"Wearing a long abaya with loose fitting poses risks as it may get entangled in the wheels," she said, adding that she intends to market the design to fellow women riders.

Reuters