Conversation with Samia Liaquat Ali Khan
Pakistan today sits at the very bottom of the Global Gender Gap Index 2024, a sobering, even humiliating, marker for a country that once prided itself on women pioneers who shaped its early political and social fabric. This dismal reality framed a candid, unflinching conversation on the MT Out Loud Podcast between development expert Samia Liaquat Ali Khan and host Aliya Agha.
A Legacy of Rights Betrayed
Samia carries with her a formidable family history. Her grandfather, Liaquat Ali Khan, was Pakistan’s first Prime Minister; her grandmother, Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, was one of the country’s earliest and fiercest champions of women’s rights.
“My grandmother always said education is non-negotiable,” Samia recalled. “Independence of thought and action comes only when you are able to stand on your own two feet.”
And yet, nearly eight decades later, those words feel like a broken promise. Despite women dominating enrollment in fields like medicine, their presence vanishes once graduation gowns are exchanged for marital expectations. Families and husbands too often decide that women’s careers end at the household doorstep
Vanishing From Public Space
Samia spoke bluntly of a cultural regression. Women in Pakistan, she argued, are not only underrepresented in offices and boardrooms, they are systematically discouraged from occupying public space.
Samia spoke bluntly of a cultural regression. Women in Pakistan, she argued, are not only underrepresented in offices and boardrooms, they are systematically discouraged from occupying public space.
“In many Muslim countries, women are visible in every field. But here, women are confined to four walls,” she said. The paradox is painful: her mother’s generation, she noted, enjoyed more freedom in attire, lifestyle, and social engagement. Today, a society more conservative than its past polices its women more harshly.
The Stark Weight of the Gender Gap
The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index is not just a global ranking it is a mirror held up to nations, reflecting their failures in education, healthcare, economic opportunity, and political voice. Pakistan’s reflection could hardly be darker.
Labor force participation for women remains around 25 percent, even among those holding university degrees. Only 10 percent of women make it to higher education in the first place.
The government’s last comprehensive labor force survey dates back to 2021, leaving the country to operate on outdated realities. “If you don’t collect data for four years, you’re relying on outdated realities. Still, the structural problems remain visible,” Samia said.
Politics Without Women
Few areas reveal this structural exclusion more starkly than politics. Despite laws mandating that political parties reserve at least five percent of seats for women, the excuse is always the same: “We can’t find women.”
Samia dismissed that with quiet force. “I see them everywhere. I attend conferences where all-male panels, manels, debate issues that directly affect women. It’s absurd.”
She herself participates in initiatives such as the Women on Boards Alliance, which publishes directories of highly qualified women leaders. “There is no excuse anymore. Exclusion is not accidental. It is deliberate. It is structural.”
Institutionalized Inequality
The discrimination is embedded in the very paperwork of citizenship. National identity systems identify a woman through her father or husband, never as an independent person. “Why is a man not identified through his wife or mother?” Samia asked.
This bureaucratic dependency trickles down to property rights, inheritance, and even access to basic services. Digital reforms, she insisted, could strip away these archaic restrictions and give women autonomy over their legal identities.
Add to this unsafe transport, lack of childcare, and everyday harassment, and the barriers multiply. Even the simple act of walking to a bus stop can be perilous, effectively locking women out of the workforce.
Changing the Script
Samia pointed to advertising and media as powerful tools for transformation or regression. Commercials, she noted, overwhelmingly show women cooking, while men, even cricketers, are the public faces of major brands.
“What if every advertisement were required to include a positive gender message? Within years, mindsets would shift,” she argued. Social media, too, could be mobilized, with campaigns targeting men directly on platforms like TikTok and Facebook to chip away at entrenched biases.
The Neglected Frontlines: Health and Education
For all the talk of reform, Pakistan’s investment in women’s health and education remains abysmally low. Maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the region. The once celebrated Lady Health Workers Program, launched under Benazir Bhutto, is now a shadow of its former self.
“Pakistan is the fifth most populous country in the world,” Samia said. “Without urgent investment in maternal health, primary healthcare, and education, we will continue to lag not just on gender, but on every development indicator.”
Towards Change
Her warning is stark. With 60 percent of Pakistan’s population under 30, the country cannot afford to pass on these inherited biases. “The future of Pakistan depends on freeing women from confinement, enabling them to contribute to the workforce, politics, and society,” she said.
The message is clear. Gender equality is not simply a matter of rights or fairness; it is a matter of Pakistan’s survival, progress, and national growth.
GENDER PARITY
SNAPSHOT by Fariha Naveed
“One in three women worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence in her lifetime — yet justice remains out of reach for most.”
— UN Women, 2024
In Pakistan alone, thousands of cases of honor killings and domestic violence are reported each year, with many more unrecorded. Rural women work up to 16 hours a day, often earning less than half the wage of men for the same labor.
Early marriages, illiteracy, and the absence of maternity facilities keep them bound to cycles of poverty. They toil in the fields from dawn to dusk, yet their wages are a fraction of men’s. Invisible in policymaking and denied representation, rural women remain voiceless in the very debates that define their futures.
But gender parity cannot and must not be treated as a distant dream. Men must become allies, not bystanders. Equal access to education, healthcare, finance, and digital platforms must be enshrined in policy, not left to chance. Media and cultural narratives must shatter outdated stereotypes, not reinforce them. Additionally, without safe shelters, legal recourse, or representation in decision-making, millions remain trapped in cycles of poverty, fear, and silence.
History shows us that when women rise, nations rise with them. Equality is not charity; it is justice. It is the bedrock of prosperous economies, healthy democracies, and humane societies. Gender parity is not optional. It is urgent, non-negotiable, and long overdue.
