ISLAMABAD: Working women and students are facing hardships in the federal capital due to lack of accommodation facilities and hostels.
Working women hailing from different parts of the country first have to encounter the major challenge of finding a suitable place at a reasonable rate with at least having basic living facilities. A girl Palosha came to Islamabad from Peshawar for a job two years ago and said that she had to change a dozen of hostels in search of a tension free place. She said, “I found it a gigantic task to find a comfortable place for living”, adding that lack of appropriate living places also created many physiological, cultural and social problems for working women.
A student of Pharmacy Uzma said, “Living in hostel, one has to adjust in changed atmosphere and find hosts of problems like non cooperative roommates, unhygienic food and substandard accommodation”. She added that it was a challenging task to adjust with roommates with different temperaments and cultural backgrounds. “However, I have learnt how to accommodate such people”, she added. Two other students also said they experienced a lot about society and how to make adjustment with different people while living in hostel.
Another girl Aliya said, “There are a lot of problems, a working lady faces in a male-dominated society while living alone in a new city”. Many girls also complained about lack of recreational facilities like television, library, computer, games, playing grounds in hostels. “Mostly a small room where only one bed can be placed is filled by three floor beds while no cupboards are provided to girls”, another student named Rimsha said. Two students of a private college Yasmeen and Sanobar said that they lived in small overcrowded cubicles because they had no other option. They added that rents of private working women hostels vary within twin cities. They range between Rs 11,000 and Rs 12,000, but the problems are same everywhere.
