September 23, 2025
Time:
6:00 pm
VC Faculty Lounge (first floor), Academic Block, LUMS
The Saida Waheed Gender Initiative (SWGI) is delighted to host its first event of Fall 2025, featuring a thought-provoking panel discussion with Angbeen Atif, Asiya Yasin, and Nida Usman Chaudhary.
The year 2025 has been pivotal for legal measures aimed at reshaping women’s lives in Pakistan. From province-level controls on substances used in gendered violence to new statutory efforts to end underage marriage and strengthen workplace safeguards, major reforms are underway. Policy measures and rulings are also highlighting women’s rights to inheritance, property, and pensions.
This panel brings together leading female legal experts to assess what these measures achieve, whom they reach, and how enforcement or articulations of the law may limit their promise. The discussion will explore why these reforms were needed, the gaps they address, and the bureaucratic and policy steps required for effective implementation.
Key developments include the Islamabad Capital Territory Marriage Restraint Act, which raises the legal marriage age to 18 and introduces new enforcement mechanisms, Punjab’s Acid-control law, inheritance enforcement proposals, constitutional amendment efforts to ensure women’s representation, and evolving case law on workplace harassment and gender-based violence.
The talk aims to evaluate gaps, consequences, and strategic opportunities for turning statutory promises into lived safety and autonomy for Pakistani women.
This panel discussion will be moderated by Maria Aamir, Faculty, Humanities and Social Sciences, LUMS.
About the Speakers:
Angbeen Atif Mirza is an Assistant Professor at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law, LUMS. She holds a B.A., LL. B from LUMS (2008), and an LL.M from the University of Michigan Law School (2010). Angbeen’s primary area of interest lies in clinical legal education, specifically street law and access to justice work.
Asiya Yasin is serving as Deputy District Public Prosecutor in Punjab, with over 18 years of experience in criminal law and prosecution. She was the pioneering female prosecutor at Asia’s first Gender-Based Violence Court in Lahore. She holds an LL.M with a focus on the role of prosecutors in criminal courts and has presented her research internationally, including in Canada on human trafficking cases. Passionate about legal education, she also mentors young lawyers and actively contributes to women’s empowerment initiatives.
Nida Usman Chaudhary is a diversity and inclusion advocate and the founder of Lahore Education and Research Network as well as the Women in Law Initiative Pakistan. Her focus has been on bridging the gap between legal education and practice through capacity building and to work for equality of access and advancement of female lawyers in the profession. She combines her professional interests in law and human rights with her activism on environmental and development issues. She holds LL.B (Hons) and LL.M in Law and Development from the University of London.
The event is open to all. External participants are requested to email their names and CNIC numbers to gender@lums.edu.pk and bring their ID cards on the day of the event for entry.
We look forward to seeing you there!
