KARACHI: It’s a scene you rarely see in Pakistan, with only women vendors selling cattle of various shapes and sizes. The women here are interested in buying cattle ahead of the festive Eid Al-Adha holidays and do so at complete ease without the fear of a male gaze upon them.
A first-of-its-kind cattle market with women vendors for families has been set up at Shadman Town in the southern port city of Karachi. With Eid just around the corner, Pakistanis flock to makeshift cattle markets across the country to buy sacrificial animals that they end up slaughtering, one of Islam’s most popular rituals of showing affection for Prophet Abraham’s devotion to God.
In conservative Pakistan, however, cultural restraints mean cattle markets are crowded mostly by men, who inspect sacrificial animals in great detail and haggle for prices before buying one. The women are rarely seen.
Not in this market, though.
“No market has ever been set up for women where women [vendors] are selling animals. This is for the first time in the world that a cattle market for women has been set up,” Ruqaiya Fareed, the market’s organizer, told Arab News.
“It’s a platform for women who do not have a male counterpart, whose fathers [or] brothers are out of the country and they are deprived of the obligation of sacrifice,” she said.
“It is also for women who nourish the animals all year long in villages but someone else benefits from it. Their animals have also been brought here.”
The market has 10 stalls only. Fareed said some of the women vendors are those who reared animals on their rooftops or gardens themselves. Another, she said, was supporting her husband’s business.
While the market was launched two weeks ago, fears of cyclone Biparjoy put a damper and delayed the animals’ arrival for a few days. Fareed said some of the cattle being sold at the market are from Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, while others are from Karachi.
Apart from the rare freedom they get to enjoy here, women can get sacrificial animals for a bargain at Shadman Town’s cattle market.
“Our rates are reasonable compared to the market and there is good news for women as they are getting a special discount,” Fareed shared.
Fareed, who owns a cattle farm in Punjab as it was her family business, said she received “complete support” from government officials, police, and the paramilitary Rangers force in terms of security.
Without disclosing the actual number, she said some vendors had already sold sacrificial animals while others had booked their stalls and were yet to start trading.
Noor Jehan, a vendor, said she sold four goats in the first week she set up her stall at the market.
“I love animals. I nourish goats all year long and then sell them on Eid Al-Adha,” Jehan told Arab News. “Women are taking interest and coming here for the purchase. I have given them a special discount.”
She encouraged other women to also dabble at animal trade.
“Women who want to take this up as a business opportunity, there is a lot of profit [in it],” she added.
Ashi Kanwal, a customer, said she bought a cow from one of the vendors at a “reasonable” price.
“I did it for the first time,” Kanwal told Arab News. “I had heard of it [market]. My son asked me to go with him as his father didn’t have the time. So, I came, I saw [the animal], made a deal, and purchased it.”
“We can’t go alone when we go toward Sohrab Goth or other cattle markets,” Kanwal said, referring to the main cattle market in Karachi, often regarded as Asia’s largest cattle market. “It’s not convenient for us as women.
“But we are comfortable coming here, the atmosphere is good, and the arrangement for food and drinks is also good. I might come next year too.”
