In an effort to fight the wave of inflation and unemployment in the country, a girl is driving her late father’s rickshaw in Karachi to support her family. The 17-year-old Alisha Abdul Jamil is setting a true example of woman empowerment by joining this male-dominant profession.
The youngest among her sisters, Alisha, is following her father’s footsteps, who taught her to drive a rickshaw. Abdul Jamil had no son, so he made her daughter powerful enough to take the bull by horns. “My father called me his son,” she said, adding that when her father was ill, he taught her driving.
Talking to a YouTube channel, she said that her father died, so she had to take out the rickshaw for her mother and sister. “I am doing it at the cost of my studies,” she stated. Alisha had only studied till 8th class, and she couldn’t find a job with this qualification despite trying repeatedly.
Alisha is currently living in a two-room rented house along with her mother and an unmarried sister, as four of her sisters are married.
She said that she has faced criticism from relatives, but some did support her. “When I go to the rickshaw stand, other drivers ask me why I am doing this, but I cannot share my story with everyone,” she said.
Like other rickshaw drivers, Alisha, too, faces difficulties like breaking down of rickshaw or a punctured tyre. “I push the rickshaw myself to reach a mechanic, but sometimes other people do help me on the road,” she said.
With high inflation and record-high petrol prices, she believes it is becoming tough to survive especially saving for the monthly house rent. “I want to appeal to the government that it should provide me my own house,” she said.
Alisha encouraged girls to support their parents. She has written a couplet on her rickshaw as her mission statement, which reads, “When the burden of responsibilities becomes unbearable, I miss my Baba dearly.”
