The research paper investigates the socio-cultural constraints faced by women entrepreneurs during startup and expansion of their entrepreneurial ventures in Ahmedpur East of District Bahawalpur through documenting their lived experiences. The research is primarily a multi-sited ethnography and utilizes qualitative research methods such as in-depth semi-structured interviews and focused group discussions on collecting primary data from a selective sample of 25 entrepreneurs ascertained through sampling technique. The study highlights gender-specific socio-cultural challenges such as social perceptions and biases, work-life balance, patronage of male family members, restricted mobility owing to Purdah and low recognition and payment of women's work etc. as prime reasons that hinder not only women participation as entrepreneurs but also inhibits their engagements and choices in entrepreneurship. Socio-cultural factors not only systematically impact women's social interactions and decision-making but transform into multiple other challenges that women fight and struggle with while making their space as entrepreneurs.

The incompatible reservations have adversely affected the uniform application of the CEDAW Convention. A significant number of incompatible reservations have been formulated by the Muslim states. Such reservations have undermined the CEDAW provisions and conceivably doubt the state's accountability for its obligations under the Convention. The research comprises of two parts; first, it examines the reservations of the Muslim states in the context of their obligations under the Convention. Second, it adopts an analytical approach to analyze women rights in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran (as a non-state party). Our findings reveal that despite the incompatible reservations, the Muslim states that have ratified the CEDAW Convention have shown significant improvement in women rights as compared to the states that are not members of the Convention. It suggests that Muslim states should revisit the scope of their reservations and adopt a rational approach towards women rights and fulfilling the obligations under the CEDAW Convention.

Acid violence is a horrible act of gender violence in orthodox societies. A study was conducted to know the reasons for the acid violence against women in Pakistani society. For this purpose, female acid attack survivors were recruited from Karachi city of Sindh province in Pakistan. We found personal conflicts and rejection of marriage proposals as major reasons for acid attacks on women. The majority of the victims are being humiliated due to disfiguring of body parts and forced to live in isolation. This study recommends strong legal framework preparation by government authorities to curb such incidents and rehabilitate acid victims.

In this brief article, an attempt has been made to revisit the Pakistan Movement in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, former North-West Frontier Province, which acquired a unique character in the sense that here the job of motivating the women was quite difficult because of the strict cultural values and way of life of women folk. Therefore the job of persuading women to participate in the freedom movement seemed difficult. In such circumstances, Begum Zari Sarfaraz rose up from the folk of Women and continued her effort despite discouraging conditions. In this paper, the role and contribution of Begum Zari Sarfaraz, the Khatoon-e-Sarhad, during the Pakistan Movement has been discussed and evaluated. In the line of this argument, the crucial struggle that she led during the final phase of the partition drama will be explored. As far as the literature on Begum Zari Sarfaraz is concerned, very little has been written on her personality as well as on her contribution to the cause of Pakistan.

The present study investigates women’s contribution to the socio-economic development of a country via their shares in the family’s total income. District Peshawar was selected as a research area A well-defined questionnaire was randomly distributed among women respondents both working women and housewives (sample size 450 = 300 urban and 150 rural). Two models, working women share in the income of household and wife’s share in household income were estimated. Based on the findings of research it is deducted that Model 2 for working women’s share in family’s total is preferred to second Model 2 for housewives shares in family’s total income although both models showed a positive and significant effect in most of the urban and rural areas of the Peshawar. It is suggested that the rate of economic participation of these women can be substantially raised through the introduction of appropriate measures if these are carried out with true letter and spirit.

This research explores the psychosocial challenges faced by rural Pakistani women in the wake of their migration to the city. A focus group and ten in-depth interviews were conducted with women from a migrant household. The study revealed that migrant women's frustration of unmet needs, the stress of unfulfilled expectations along with pressing socio-economic circumstances paves the way for a range of psychological problems like hopelessness, demoralization, lack of motivation, shame, social withdrawal and isolation, psychosomatic complaints anxiety and depression. The findings revealed that Persistent poverty does not only affect the psychological well-being of these migrant women but also keeps them trapped in impoverishment. It also highlighted that the psychosocial challenges for these migrant women increase twofold in the urban settings as they are compelled to exist on the margin of the margins as the poorest of the poor.

The primary purpose of parliamentarian is to make legislation to enable the lives of the people as per the requirements of the teachings of Islam (Quran and Sunnah) as described in Objectives Resolution 1949 and the constitution of 1973. In the parliamentary system of Pakistan, women's share as elected representatives is very low. Despite a low share in representation, there are some women's voices that reflect the sentiments of Islamic legislation. There is a wide array of academic scholarship on Islam and women's politics. This scholarship is divided into dogmatic conservative interpretation and liberal and modern interpretation. The dogmatic interpretive knowledge production is not in favour of women's political space but on the other side, modern liberal interpretive knowledge production explains the concept of modernity in Islam and favoured women's political participation. This paper explains the nature of knowledge production on Islam and women politics within the framework of dogmatism and modern interpretive perspective. The modern interpretivism claim that women have equal rights in political representation on the principle of gender equality. Dogmatists claim that women need to live as per prescribed limits set by the sacred injunctions.

The awakening has spoken to women's issues across time in many corners of the world regardless of caste, faith, nationality. Being a semi-autobiographical American-Novel, The Awakening was a catharsis against the late-19th-century Victorian constraints on Southern American women. The text challenged the hold of Victorian shackles on women's social, personal, marital, and sexual rights. Although the text had poor critical reception in its own time, it was reaccredited in the 1950s. Since then, the novel has kept on enlightening its readers through its powerful female-characters across times and cultures. This study revisits how the text reflected women's individualism; how readers responded to it, and how it has contributed a change to women's position. The analogy also signifies the degree to which the study could encourage the suppressed women's voice in Pakistan against—social, personal, marital, sexual —injustices that are done to them under cultural shackles, religious romanticizing, and androcentric norms.

The augmented usage of digital technology, predominantly mobile ownership, has significantly altered the ways of doing the thing. The digital era with the internet-connected world is creating new venues for social and economic development, with efficiency in digital literacy for participation. The present article explores the digital literacy skills of women that enables them to be active members of the digital world. It also investigates the challenges, self-learning, and financial constraints among other few, which women face while acquiring these skills. The qualitative research is conducted in Islamabad and Rawalpindi using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study indicated that 83% of women have learnt digital skills informally and yet these help them in strengthening their social networks, managing daily affairs regarding their personal life and most significantly being engaged in entrepreneurship from digital forums. This successful use of digital technology has contributed to their social and economic empowerment.

Womens social, economic and political status is differently defined by the advocates of Modern Civil Society (MCS) and Traditional Civil Society (TCS). It is generally assumed that TCS gives little or no status at all to their female group of the society. This issue is still very critical in poor and developing countries including Pakistan. The current study has been conducted to statistically testing the assumptions of positive relations between MCS and women status (WS) and negative connections between TCS and WS. Notably, both positive and negative relations have been significantly proved by first-hand data from a sample of 205 (n=241; return-rate=85%) subjects. The findings support the higher level of WS as per the values of the MCS.