Meet Nida Usman Chaudhary – Our Superwoman Without A Cape!

Story of every unsung hero revolves around unmatched dedication, commitment, no greed of financial gains, feeling a responsibility towards others and believing in giving back to the community. Meet Nida Usman Chaudhary, a superwoman without a cape!

Nida holds LLB and LLM degrees from the University of London. She is the founder of Lahore Education and Research Network (LEARN) – a network of professionals who aim to bridge the gap between legal education and practice. She founded the Women in Law Initiative in Pakistan to work for equality of opportunity and connectivity of female lawyers. Currently, she is serving as the Chairperson of the Lahore High Court Bar Association’s Committee on Gender Equality and Diversity and the Alliance for Equality in Dispute Resolution’s (an international NGO) Ambassador in Pakistan. Also, she is doing all this while being a parent!

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We had the pleasure of sitting down with Nida to ask her about her journey so far and this is what she had to say:

Why do you do what you do? What was the motivation behind it?

The crux of my work can be summed up into one word – ADVOCACY!. I channelize my passion and commitment towards human rights, in general, and towards equality, diversity and inclusion, in particular, to raise awareness and work for a more inclusive society because I believe that true democracy can only come with true representation of the cross-section of people in positions of policy and on key administrative and official posts. Being a woman which is a marginalized class itself and then finding myself in the male dominated profession of law in which I faced discouragement and discrimination first hand as well as misogyny and sexist remarks motivated me to take the initiatives that I did and motivate me to do the work that I do.

What success have you achieved so far?

Perhaps one of the biggest contributions that we have been able to make has been through the ‘Women in Law’ initiative which was a first in Pakistan to highlight the challenges and opportunities for female lawyers. The initiative also had the impact of connecting female lawyers all across Pakistan on a common platform where they can interact, seek professional support and assistance, organize themselves for various campaigns and causes and even seek jobs. We have inspired women from within our network to take the mission forward and set up a formal ‘National Women Lawyers Society’ (NWLS) in Pakistan.

One of the most notable cases in which we made an impact through the Women in Law platform was Khadija Siddiqi’s case. We also were able to take a collective stance against sexist remarks about the length of the skirt by Chief Justice of Pakistan, following which he issued an apology. Infact Women in Law is a contribution in itself for it has been instrumental in bringing forward female role models and in highlighting their work and struggles in order to inspire the younger generation. This is also our ode to Late Ms. Asma Jahangir, the sad demise of whom has left a void in the profession.

Over the years, we have managed to highlight challenges faced by female lawyers but through that we have also been able to bring into light the challenges of working women in general in Pakistan. We mainstreamed the notions of equality, gender sensitivity and access to justice in the context of all marginalized classes and not just women alone!

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What are the challenges you face in your multiple awareness programs?

As a young network, we feel that our biggest challenge has been the lack of access to funds, infrastructure and resources as well as legal options vis a vis a suitable business model that promotes and supports small innovative ventures, community and social development enterprises.

A particular challenge we faced in our action-based campaign against single-use plastic was lack of alternative products in the real sense of the term. Politicians and industries will have to adapt to environment friendly options and even campaign for them. People still disassociate themselves with environmental concerns because the human connection and impact is not adequately being explained at a public level.

Apart from social media awareness, have you done anything at the community level?

On Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

1. An active WhatsApp group with female lawyers from across Pakistan has been established and has been instrumental in connecting female lawyers for work related assistance and opportunities. We have managed to connect more than 120 female lawyers and at least 5 out of them found their new jobs because of the forum in past 6 months.

2. The initiative was able to organize female lawyers to show support for Khadija Siddiqi during her case.

3. We are working on policy recommendations regarding reform of the law on harassment in Pakistan. The same will be presented to stakeholders in a consultative meeting/seminar in the last quarter of this year which it is hoped will result in law reform.

4. Gender-Sensitivity Training of Lawyers have been and will be conducted throughout this year and we also plan to work with the Bar Council to establish a committee in legal profession on sexual harassment as required under the Workplace Harassment Act 2010.

For the plastic consumption campaign:

1. We have started tracking our plastic footprint as well as our water consumption patterns.

2. We are also in talks with several universities to track their plastic footprint as well and to dissuade the use of single-use plastic products in their premises.

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What are your future plans? How do you plan to take your campaigns to a higher level?

 

1. To promote gender sensitivity, access and inclusion in the legal profession through policy recommendations, studies, gender audit, workshops, article writing competitions and awareness sessions. 

2. Session on importance of segregating waste and its proper disposal is also planned. The alternative ways to re-use and re-invent plastic waste will also be included so that we can discuss how our waste can become our resource instead.

3. We are developing linkages and partnerships with media to reach out to masses vis a vis our campaigns.

Nida Usman Chaudhary is indeed a very inspiring lady! We wish her best of luck for her future endeavors!

To know more about Nida’s work, you can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

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