Improving mobility and jobs for women: The case of Karachi

Samaria Khan is a Pakistani mother living in Hyderabad. She wakes up at 4:00 am and has a six hour daily commute to Karachi to participate in the First Women Driver Program for Public Transport. Her decision to become a bus driver was augmented in the need to provide for her family.  

The story of Humera­ –another bus driver trainee who hails from an underprivileged area in Karachi-- echoes a similar reality. ­­A single mother of three children, Humera works hard to make ends meet and aspires to equip her children with sound education.

Huma, another single parent of two kids works as a part-time polio worker and is enthusiastic to complete her Heavy Transport Vehicle (HTV) driver’s license requirement to steer the wheel. Until then, she continues to work as a bus hostess to acquire practical experience in the sector.

In a job sector dominated by men, Samaria, Humera and Huma have stepped up to the challenge to build a prosperous future for themselves and their families.

Due to social and gender norms, lack of education and safe public transport along with other factors, jobs and access to jobs for women in Pakistan remains challenging. Only 21 percent of Pakistani women are part of the workforce, the lowest in South Asia, and one of the lowest globally¹. Safe public transport for women plays a key role in improving access to jobs for women.

Despite the city of Karachi being home to 20 million people and yielding nearly 20 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP), female participation in the workforce in Sindh province was only 11 percent in 2021². 80 percent of women have experienced harassment in public transport³. Access to jobs remains restricted since most public transport options are paratransit, informal, and unsafe for women. For instance, in the city of Lahore, 75 percent of women are willing to work if safe transport is provided (Read study here). Despite the efforts of the provincial government to expand its Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) network, female ridership still stands at around 20 percent. For females with higher levels of education and incomes, alternative private modes of transport are options. However, this is not the case for poor and low-income women.

To increase access to jobs for women, the World Bank Group is supporting the Karachi Mobility Project (KMP) BRT Yellow Line (YL). The YL is a 21 km dedicated bus system, currently under implementation by the Sindh Mass Transit Authority (SMTA) of the Government of Sindh. In 2026, the YL will require about 650 new bus drivers. This is a unique opportunity to not only to improve access to jobs, but also to increase job opportunities for women.

As part of the Gender Action Plan, the SMTA, in collaboration with the National Highways and Motorway Police and the National Radio and Telecommunication Corporation, launched a successful Women Drivers Pilot in 2023 that is ongoing with practical training. Inspired by the pilot’s success and lessons, a second and larger application call for women and transgender bus drivers was launched in November  2024. This pioneering initiative to mandate women and transgender drivers is aimed at making the YL more inclusive to work and also improve women ridership.

Additionally, stations and bus depots of the YL have been designed in consultation with women and transgender target groups to reflect their needs and expectations. Key features will include appropriate locations of washrooms for women and men; adequate illumination of external access and station areas; alert ‘bottoms’; color-coded directional signs and helpline numbers in local languages strategically placed to report harassment or help; CCTV in stations and buses; visible reporting desks to address incidents of harassment of women, children and other crimes; and, adequate display of anti-harassment and gender-based violence messages.

The paradigm is very simple: effective safety measures in the BRT Yellow Line create incentives for women to become bus drivers. As the current market of women drivers is incipient, limited by social and culture barriers, the KMP endeavors to change that reality through improving safety conditions in the bus depot facilities, and providing training programs, all while focusing on the recruitment and retention of women drivers, with a minimum target of 30 percent. An increase in women bus drivers will prompt an increase in more women ridership as well as women’s access to jobs in Karachi.

While there are initial costs of training women and a learning curve, the long-term economic and social benefits including reduction of accidents, less traffic fines, lower rotation, growth in women’s ridership, enhanced safety and increased opportunities for women, promise a positive future. This was certainly the case for an electric bus system driven only by women in Bogota, Colombia.

Women like Kiran are already benefiting: “Before I took the bus driving training, I could only dream of becoming a bus driver. But now, I’m one of the few women in Karachi who will be working as a bus driver on the YL. The program has completely transformed my life, I am earning income to support my family and am breaking stereotypes about what women can do.”

_References:

_{1. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has estimated that narrowing down the gap female labor force participation can generate 19.3 million jobs and boost Pakistan’s GDP by almost 23 percent. Read more at WEF_GGGR_2024.pdf (weforum.org)}

_{2. Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, Key Findings. Available at https://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/labour_force/publications/lfs2020_21/Key_Findings_of_Labour_Force_Survey_2020-21.pdf}

_{3. An empirical review of Karachi’s Transportation Predicaments: from Personal Attitudes to Public Opinion – a mega city survey – Syeda Hoorul Ain, University of Karachi, 2016. Available at https://genderinsite.net/sites/default/files/safe-public-transport-women-girls.pdf}