PESHAWAR: Dr. Sumera Shams broke a few stereoptypes on the way to becoming the youngest elected politicians in the history of Pakistan. The 26-year old, a member of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) who will soon take her seat in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly, said she aims to help others to do likewise by working in her new position to help the nation’s youth and empower women.
She comes from Lower Dir, a remote and conservative district of KP where women traditionally have not been considered as candidates by political parties. Undeterred, she was determined to carry on the political legacy of her father, Shamsul Qamar Khan, an Awami National Party candidate who died of a heart attack on polling day in 2008.
“I have proven all the odds wrong that said a young woman, or any citizen at this age, cannot be a legislator,” she said.
A student at the time of her father’s death, Shams joined PTI soon after and began running the party’s female-student wing in KP.
“Student politics is the main nursery for those who want to be seasoned leaders,” she said. She went on to become head of the Insaf Students Federation, focusing in particular on the challenges confronting women and young people in the traditional society. She considers this the start of her political career.
“The only party at that time who welcomed and gave opportunities to young women from remote areas was PTI,” says Shams.
After PTI emerged from the 2018 general elections on July 25 as the biggest party in the center, and in the Punjab and KP assemblies, Shams was chosen by the party to join the KP assembly in a reserved seat for women.
She said that Dir, previously a stronghold of religious-political party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), had not seen much economic progress or development under that regime, which is why women, in particular, largely rejected it in the latest elections.
“This time, JI chief Sirajul Haq lost by about 40,000 votes, which is the same number of women voters in the constituency,” she said, adding that women in the area had been encouraged and enabled to use their right to vote, and had done so to reject JI.
She said that Lower Dir is now a PTI stronghold because “no human or infrastructural development could be seen in Lower Dir despite repeated rules of JI.”
Shams is a member of PTI’s central women’s executive committee. She practices medicine in the public-health sector as a program coordinator in the Family Medicine Department of the Global Health Directorate-Indus Health Network, and intends to continue to do so, combining her career with her work as a member of the assembly.
Her youth-development priorities include civic education, leadership training and opportunities, and employment after graduation.
“For women, my aim is to establish a women’s university or campus in the underdeveloped Lower Dir district as soon as possible,” she added.
Youngest-ever Pakistani lawmaker vows to work for youth and empowerment of women
Youngest-ever Pakistani lawmaker vows to work for youth and empowerment of women
- Shams, who is about to take her seat in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly at the age of 26, is the youngest legislator in the history of Pakistani politics
- She is from the remote district of Lower Dir, and said Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf was the only party to consider fielding a female candidate in the conservative area
Philippines struggles to evacuate nationals from Middle East as attacks escalate across region
- Over 1,400 Philippine nationals in Middle East have requested for repatriation
- Filipinos are told to shelter in place, follow host government’s advice on situation
MANILA: The Philippines is in talks to evacuate its nationals from across the Middle East, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Tuesday, as an increasing number of Filipinos are seeking to leave amid growing destruction from US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Tehran’s counterstrikes against US bases in Gulf countries.
More than 2.4 million Filipinos live and work in the Middle East, where tensions have been high since Saturday, after coordinated US-Israel strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian officials.
Tehran responded by targeting US military bases in Gulf countries, and violence has been widening across the region.
Evacuating Philippine nationals across the region is not yet possible, Marcos said, as countries closed their airspace, leading to airport shutdowns and the cancellation of thousands of flights throughout the Middle East.
“For now, we are depending on the advice that will be given to us by the local authorities in the place where our nationals — where our people — are,” Marcos told reporters in Manila on Tuesday.
The Philippine government has received requests for repatriation from more than 1,400 Filipino nationals in various Middle Eastern countries, including 872 from the UAE and almost 300 from Israel. Similar requests have also been made by Filipinos in Iran, Bahrain and Jordan.
“Right now, the most dangerous area for our people right now would be Israel as attacks there are continuous,” Marcos said.
“The problem now is that no planes are flying and airports are being hit. That’s why the situation is very fluid, our assessment is that it may be too dangerous to mount flights.
“Even if we could charter an aircraft, we cannot do anything because number one, the airports are closed. They are all no-fly zones.”
As the Philippine government prepares for multiple scenarios, officials have secured buses and other vehicles for possible evacuation by land.
Filipinos in “danger areas” have been moved to a safer place, Marcos said, citing the targeting of Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura oil refinery by Iranian drones on Monday morning.
“But essentially our advice to them is shelter in place and follow the host government’s advice … For now it’s extremely difficult to enter or exit the region because the only aircraft flying are fighter jets and drones, and missiles.
“That’s why it is not a place that you would want to put in a civilian aircraft to take out our nationals,” he said.
“But again, as I said, the situation is changing by the minute, by the hour. We just have to be in very good and close contact with the local authorities.”
