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Girls at Dhabas: challenging issues of safety, or ‘respectability’ in urban Pakistan?

“You need to understand,” I told the reporter. “These are baby steps, but important steps, for fuller participation in the public sphere.”

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Girls at Dhabas.

Girls at Dhabas. Photo: Facebook/Girls at Dhabas.

We are sitting at a dhaba – a roadside tea-shop in Pakistan often frequented by lower-to-middle income men. At our table: four women and camera crew. The reporter from ‘one of the most globally viewed’ [read: western], mainstream British outlets looks me in the eye: “So, how safe do you feel at the moment? We were just surrounded by a group of little boys [because of the cameras], do you think the situation can ever turn on you?"