Would there be a day when we in Pakistan live a life of our free will, a time without fear? I have lived all my life seeking for that peace but I do pray to Allah that the present generation may see that light and breathe the winds of God. So that the existence of Islamic bigotry becomes obsolete.

I being a resident of the province can say how awful it would feel to be a secondary citizen being always treated like a stepchild by the male inhabitants. And irony becomes even grave in a nation that was ruled twice by a woman, Benazir Bhutto, a name that started to associate itself with women empowerment, at least in Pak but it’s a different story that the name itself became an epitaph.

Even today, the posters and flag of Mohterma are fluttering in the wind but irony is that, we the women voters do not stand any chance of casting our vote. The unfilled ballot boxes inside the women’s polling station give such evidence of this impecunious province.

Senior conservative citizens came ahead and casted their vote but made sure to keep us at bay as they feel the fairer gender is not capable of selecting the constituency’s national and provincial lawmakers. Do you really think so?

Even today, people in the province feel that women mustn’t leave their residences without men, bombings further have aggravated the nasty situation for us. The pro-Taliban militants have fueled the suffocating atmosphere as they have gained an eminent momentum in spraying blizzard of attacks, which have resulted in fear among the masses.

Recent clashes among the dissatisfied groups have assailed the girls’ schools and cautioned women against working for international or local charities. They have even gone to extremes and have performed misdeeds like stoning and beheading women by accusing them of adultery. They have done so in the name of Allah, only to quench their insatiable desire of exploiting women and putting them down socially as well as emotionally.

The province is saturated with chauvinistic ridden laws, which are always ready to strangle our lives, and men do not leave any chance of throttling the lives of their women folk. After all the laws too favor them hence, there is no one to question or keep an eye on them.

Women in majority feel apprehensive of speaking their mind out in public, a continuous fear lurking o’er their heads, who knows when somebody round the corner pounce on them for being a rebel, after all free action and free will comes under the paraphernalia of a rebel, at least here in Pakistan.

Women in the west have shown how much they have progressed both professionally and individually, we too can show the world that we aren’t lacking anywhere but only if we could get rid of these biased rules that govern our society.