'Women on motorcycles will be supported in Sindh'

Women on Wheels project distributes driving licenses to those registered with the programme

KARACHI: Women riding motorcycles is no longer inappropriate in Punjab, and it will be supported in Sindh too, maintained Salman Sufi, the chairperson of Salman Sufi Foundation.
He was speaking at a graduation ceremony for the Women on Wheels project organised by the foundation in association with the Sindh government at the Arts Council Karachi, where driving licenses and helmets were distributed to women.
"Women on Wheels is not a project - it is a message. We don't have to confine 49 per cent of our population to our homes," asserted Sufi in his address. "Women will come into leadership and the old-fashioned approach that a woman's role is to sit in the backseat will be transformed." He added that nothing could stop women from progressing if they enter more fields and professions.
He informed the audience that the programme had been granted permission to teach women how to ride motorcycles in other provinces too, adding that acquiring these licenses would change women's lives.
Pakistan Peoples Party's women wing president and MPA Faryal Talpur, speaking at the ceremony, said that we have to make women independent because no country could progress without empowering its women.
"It was the dream of [former prime minister] Shaheed Benazir Bhutto to enable women to become independent," she pointed out, adding that 50 women were earning an independent income by driving commercial truck in Thar under a project initiated by the Sindh government.
The ceremony was also attended by the Sindh chief minister's adviser on law, environment and coastal development Murtaza Wahab, Sindh Women Development Minister Shehla Raza, Karachi Arts Council president Ahmed Shah and others.