COMMUNITY PERCEPTION TOWARDS WORKING WOMEN IN NGOs: A
CASE STUDY OF HUB CHOWKI, DISTRICT LASBELA
Manzoor Ahmed1
  and Latifa Kamal
2
This paper explores the perception of community members regarding working women
in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). It seeks to investigate the role of women
in the development sector and their empowerment in Hub District Lasbela, Balochistan,
Pakistan. The paper is also aimed at examining the role of women in social development
and their working with the NGOs. It attempts to highlight the socio-cultural and economic
factors that influence the behaviour of community towards women’s role in development
sector. To reach these objectives, three union councils of tehsil Hub Chowki are selected
where 60 research participants have been interviewed applying the interpretive approach.
The participants view the employment of women in NGOs’ sector against the cultural
norms and customs of the community. Consequently, most of the participants still believe
that women should not work in development sector as equally as their men counterparts.
Conversely, the results also indicate that because of the deconstruction of social and
cultural norms in Balochistan, particularly in District Lasbela, the attitude of community
has been changing in favour of women’s involvement in social and development sector,
including the NGOs. Moreover, the findings also reveal that women’s overall empowerment
is an essential factor for women to engage with the NGO sector. In Balochistan, the
society is traditional with patriarchal norms that have strong impact on social behaviour
favouring men to have a superior role in social and community affairs. Therefore, women are suppressed and do not get a chance to exercise their social and political rights.
Such constraints make it difficult for them to join workforce, particularly the NGOs.
KEY WORDS: Community; perception; NGOs, women, empowerment, Lasbela, Hub