A report titled ‘Women’s Safety Audit on Public Transport in Lahore’, conducted by Aurat Foundation, has found that some 90 percent of women are harassed while travelling by public transport; with 82 percent enduring the same at bus stops. The study confirms that current transport infrastructure across the city is not conducive to facilitating women in the public sphere. Those behind the report have examined transport provisions by Lahore Transport Company (LTC) and Metro Bus, while interviewing some 903 women commuters, 100 bus drivers as well as conductors. The study, carried out by Aurat Foundation and co-led by the Women’s Development Department (WDD) Punjab and UN Women, was realised in collaboration with the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW), the Chief Minister’s Strategic Reform Unit and the Punjab Safe City Project (PSCP), which has been at the forefront of the struggle promoting women’s rights. It identifies another alarming trend whereby 62 percent of women have been harassed by fellow passengers. Equally worrying is that 98 percent of women interviewed were unaware of pro-women laws dealing with sexual harassment. The report focuses on Lahore where public transport options for women remain limited. Yet in other cities these are non-existent. It also highlights the extent to which women have little or no access to public spaces. Such findings confirm time and again that misogyny still prevails across the country. Yet many are in a perpetual state of denial. Women’s rights are viewed by the right-wing as a ‘foreign agenda’ aimed at destabilising Pakistan. And then we have our secular (patriarchal) elites who are all too willing to turn a blind eye to the struggles of lower-class women as they negotiate the public sphere, despite concrete evidence of harassment — preferring to only recognise this when documented on social media. Thus as the ruling PMLN government plans to extend transport infrastructure across the city of Lahore and beyond it must ensure — on a non-negotiable priority basis — that such systems are accessible to women and take into account their concerns regarding physical security. Yet as things stand today, gender-insensitive attitudes remain the hallmark of official development plans and projects. This has to change if Pakistan’s constitutional rights are to hold any value. * Published in Daily Times, December 23rd 2017.