In the recent Pakistani television drama Rehmat , a young man asks Alizeh, a wheelchair user and jewellery designer, whether they can meet somewhere outside. Her response is immediate: “Ek larki jo wheelchair par hai, ap usay bahir milne ka keh rahay hain? Ap meri mazoori ka mazaq ura rahay hain?” (You’re asking a girl who uses a wheelchair to meet you outside? Are you making fun of my disability?)
The scene captures the reality that disabled Pakistanis know all too well: our cities and their infrastructures — schools, workplaces, and public spaces — are often inaccessible. A simple outing can require careful planning, transportation arrangements, and the hope that there will be a ramp, an accessible entrance, or even a functioning washroom.
Yet, during my research on and interviews of disabled women across Pakistan, I learned that accessibility is about far more than physical infrastructure. It’s about attitudinal and societal barriers as well, which are informed by the complex socio-cultural context of Pakistan. Despite being invisible, they are just as effective in hindering accessibility as a flight of stairs or lack of sign language interpretation.
As a disabled researcher myself, I spent more than six months in 2025 interviewing 21 disabled women across Pakistan to understand what disability advocacy meant to them, the challenges they faced in pursuing it, and the social and cultural norms that shaped their participation in public life.
One finding in particular surprised me. When I asked participants about the greatest barriers they faced, I expected to hear them talk about inaccessible buildings, discrimination, or lack of employment opportunities. Instead, shifting — or transferring between surfaces — emerged as one of the greatest challenges facing women with physical disabilities.
Shabana*, a 49-year-old wheelchair user with muscular dystrophy who is an associate professor and disability advocate of more than a decade, explained that for her, the greatest barrier was not education, employment, or even the wheelchair itself. It was shifting: getting from a wheelchair into a car, from a car into a classroom, or navigating staircases and other inaccessible environments. These everyday transitions, often taken for granted by others, required constant planning, physical effort, and emotional vulnerability.
For years, she was able to continue her education because friends helped her transfer between wheelchairs and vehicles. Looking back, she reflected that without those friends, completing her master’s degree — which ultimately opened up a world of professional opportunities — would have been nearly impossible.
Shabana also told me about another disabled woman who was able to attend college only because her brother carried her onto his motorcycle every day. When they arrived on campus, he would transfer her into a wheelchair and help her get to her classes. She completed her education this way. But then her brother got married and his responsibilities changed. He became less available and there was no replacement support system on which she could rely to further her education or career.
She also felt hesitant to ask for her brother’s help now that he had, in her words, “a family of his own”. As a result, despite being educated and capable of working, she remains largely confined to her home because she has no reliable way to travel independently.
These lived experiences of disabled women in Pakistan reveal a dimension of accessibility that is rarely discussed in public debates. When policymakers think about disability inclusion, they often think about visible infrastructure: ramps, elevators, accessible buses, and designated parking spaces. These investments are important and long overdue.
Several women I interviewed spoke about being invited to television studios, advocacy events, or cultural centres only to encounter inaccessible entrances, missing ramps or the absence of elevators.
But disabled Pakistani women frequently depend on another form of infrastructure that remains almost entirely invisible — female relatives, sisters, friends, attendants, and caregivers who make mobility possible. For many women, this support is not simply a matter of convenience. It is shaped by deeply held religious and cultural norms regarding modesty, privacy, and physical contact.
Jannat*, who is also a wheelchair user, explained that if a disabled man needs help getting into a vehicle, a driver or stranger may be willing to lift him. For a disabled woman, the situation is often more complicated. Assistance with transferring between a wheelchair and a vehicle or navigating inaccessible spaces may require physical contact and many families are uncomfortable with such assistance being provided by a na-mehram (unrelated) man. As a result, women often require a female companion or family member to accompany them whenever they leave home.
This reality is rarely reflected in accessibility planning.
The challenge becomes even more apparent in a society where women’s mobility is already shaped by concerns surrounding safety and family honour. Many women repeatedly described how the families of disabled women worried, in the words of Batool*, “double or triple times more” about their movements than those of disabled men. Batool is an experienced disability rights advocate who regularly travels internationally for advocacy work, yet she observed that concerns about accompaniment, safety, and reputation continued to shape how disabled women’s mobility was viewed. Questions about who would accompany them, who would help them transfer between spaces, and whether they would be safe in public were constant considerations.
Fauzia*, a disability rights advocate in her thirties who uses crutches after being disabled by polio during childhood, summarised these attitudes bluntly: if people doubt a disabled woman’s ability to navigate the world independently, they also question her ability to protect herself. These concerns are not entirely unfounded. Women with disabilities face significantly higher risks of harassment, abuse, and exploitation than many other groups.
The women I spoke to described carefully selecting ride-hailing app drivers, travelling with trusted female companions, avoiding certain spaces, and sometimes concealing aspects of their disabilities to reduce vulnerability.
The result is that mobility becomes a complex negotiation involving accessibility, gender, safety, religion, economics, and family support. And economics matters. Several women described spending substantial portions of their income on drivers, attendants, and transportation.
Shabana, who has high support needs, explained that more than half of her salary goes toward mobility-related expenses. She maintains multiple attendants because if one is unavailable, she risks missing work altogether. For women from lower-income households, such arrangements are often impossible. Jane*, a blind educator and disability rights advocate, shared stories of disabled women who had to turn down advocacy opportunities because they simply could not afford the cost of travel. The result was not only a loss for those women personally but also for the broader disability movement, which lost valuable voices, perspectives, and leadership.
This raises an important question: what would accessibility look like if it were designed with disabled women in mind?
The answer is not to dismiss cultural or religious values that many families consider important. Nor is it to frame these values as obstacles that must be removed. Rather, it is to recognise the realities they create and design services accordingly.
Imagine trained female accessibility assistants at hospitals, universities, transport hubs, and government offices. Imagine subsidised attendant services for disabled women seeking education or employment. Imagine accessible transport systems that recognise the additional support some women require in order to travel safely and with dignity. Such initiatives would not replace ramps, elevators, or accessible transport, rather, they would complement them.
Accessibility is often treated as a technical issue that can be solved through architecture and engineering alone. My research suggests otherwise.
For many disabled women in Pakistan, the question is not simply whether a building has a ramp. It is whether they can reach that building, enter it, navigate it, and return home with dignity. For many, the barrier is not the wheelchair, it is everything that must happen before and after the wheelchair moves. Until our understanding of accessibility reflects that reality, inclusion will remain more aspiration than achievement.
*Names have been changed to maintain anonymity
