This International Women’s Day, meet Pakistan’s first all-female food delivery crew

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Bisma Mujahid (L), Asma Rani, Beenish Maria and Sadia Eida, Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery crew, pose with their tea-pink scooters outside KFC in Lahore on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Bisma Mujahid (L), Asma Rani, Beenish Maria and Sadia Eida, Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery crew, pose with their custom-made bikes outside KFC in Lahore on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Bisma Mujahid (L), Asma Rani, Beenish Maria and Sadia Eida, Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery crew, pose with their specially-designed scooters outside KFC in Lahore on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, seen at the KFC restaurant on Lahore’s Model Town Link Road. “Because of this [job], I have escaped so many problems in my life, so many entanglements in my personal life,” Rani told Arab News, pursing her wide, red mouth. “I can’t explain it but I just want to say that my life has changed.” (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Beenish Maria (L), Sadia Eida, Bisma Mujahid, and Asma Rani, Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery crew, speak outside KFC in Lahore on March 6, 2019. The girls are paid a base salary of Rs.20,000 a month. Tips and fuel allowance almost double their take-home. Last month, Rani said she delivered 86 orders. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza).

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Bisma Mujahid (L), Asma Rani, Beenish Maria and Sadia Eida, Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery crew, pose with their tea-pink scooters outside KFC in Lahore on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Beenish Maria (clockwise), Sadia Eida and Bisma Mujahid sit down and chat at a KFC restaurant between delivery orders. The best part of her job, said Maria, a petite, 24-year-old wearing bubblegum pink lipstick, was that it was “fun.” (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Beenish Maria, 20, poses next to her scooter on March 6, 2019. When she first started working at KFC and became a delivery worker, she said lots of people in her family and neighborhood passed “disheartening comments.” “I’ve learnt to stop worrying and just have fun,” she said. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Sadia Eida, 24, prepares to leave on a delivery run. She loves to take selfies and go to the beauty salon. She is also part of a crew of Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery workers. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Bisma Mujahid, 24, speaks to Arab News at a KFC restaurant in Lahore on March 6, 2019. Until a few months ago, she didn’t even know how to ride a bicycle. Now she is part of Pakistan first all-female food delivery crew. She said she is currently teaching girls in her neighborhood how to ride her scooter. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Sadia Eida, 24, returns after delivering a food order. She is part of a crew of Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery workers. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, prepares an order in the KFC kitchen on March 6, 2019. She previously used to work at a boutique and then a beauty salon. Now she’s part of Pakistan’s first all-female food delivery crew. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, wears her barbie-pink delivery kit in the KFC kitchen on March 6, 2019. On a recent delivery round, a young boy emerged out of his house, looked at her and said to his father: “She’s a doll!” Rani is one of ten women that make up Pakistan’s first all-female food delivery crew. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, prepares to leave to deliver an order on March 6, 2019 in Lahore. In february, she said, she delivered 86 orders. “The tips were really good,” she said. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, adjusts the strap of her pink helmet as she prepares to go deliver an order on March 6, 2019. On a recent delivery run, an old man emerged from his house to collect his order and put his hand out to shake hers. When she quickly took off her helmet, he was shocked to see it was a woman. “He put his hand on my head, gave me love,” Rani said. “He said, well done, my daughter.” (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, gets on her custom-made tea pink scooter to deliver a KFC food order on March 6, 2019. On a delivery round in early March, a woman customer exchanged a few words with Rani and then handed over Rs.500. “That’s really good,” Rani said as she got back on her bike in a quiet Lahore neighborhood lined with big bungalows. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, drives past a Metro supermarket on her way to deliver an order on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, on the road in Lahore’s Model Town Area on her way to deliver an order on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, smiles for the camera on the road in Lahore’s Model Town Area on her way to deliver an order on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, parks outside a house in Lahore’s Model Town Area where she has arrived to deliver an order on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, hands over an order of fried chicken and chips to a customer in Lahore’s Model Town Area on March 6, 2019. Raffat Khan, the customer, tells Arab News: “It’s about time women come out like this.” (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Asma Rani, 27, drives down Model Town’s main Link Road as a man on a motorbike and a rickety white carry van try to catch up on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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A man on a motorbike speeds up to catch up with Asma Rani, 27, as she drives down Model Town’s main Link Road on March 6, 2019. She is part of Pakistan’s first all-female food delivery crew. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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A portrait of Bisma Mujahid,, 24, as she prepares to leave on a delivery run on March 6, 2019. When she’s done with work, she wants to get home quickly on her bike to watch Pakistan’s national cricket league tournament. She is part of a crew of Pakistan’s first all-women food delivery crew. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Beenish Maria, 20, adjusts the strap on her helmet and talks to a colleague as she prepares to leave to delivery a food order on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Beenish Maria, 20, tries to balance her own and a colleague’s delivery kit as they get ready to go deliver a food order in Lahore on March 6, 2019. “We are all sisters here,” she tells Arab News. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Muhammad Nawaz, who runs the all-female delivery workers project for KFC, poses for a photo at a KFC branch on March 6, 2019. The project was launched in January with a first batch of ten girls. “Another ten [girls] are under training and will be added to the crew soon,” Nawaz said.

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Nayab Jan, the head of business development at Community Support Concern, speaks to Arab News at her office in Lahore on March 6, 2019. CSC has partnered with KFC on the women delivery workers project. “Why can’t women be driving scooters?” she said. “And why can’t women be driving scooters and using them to do the kind of jobs, like delivering food, that men do all the time? That’s the thinking behind this.” (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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A male customer places an order for food with two women members of KFC staff at the Lahore Model Town Link Road branch of the restaurant on March 6, 2019. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)

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Shaista Jan, the CEO of Community Support Concern which has partnered with KFC on the all-girls delivery project, speaks to Arab News at her office in Lahore on March 6, 2019. “There is a message in this project: that the roads belong to women also,” said the longtime women’s rights activist who first conceived the idea for women food delivery workers almost three years ago. (AN photo by Mohsin Raza)