Mapping Labour Unions in Pakistan and at the same time, ensure that men continue to wield power. Sheher Bano(PFUJ) feels that her educational background and the stipulation for mandatory participation of women by the International Union of Journalists helped her gain entry into the union in the early years of her career. This reaffirms the importance of capacity building among women where specialized skill sets would make them indispensable to the unions and also of the success of affirmative policies set by international bodies. Zehra Khan(HBWWF) highlighted the importance of supportive mentors and an enabling, action-oriented environment. In a culture that conditions women into valuing submissive passivity, having strong role models in trade union leaders is crucial for women’s participation in them. Finally, the role of supportive families can not be emphasized enough as is evident from the experiences of PWF and HBWWF. 2.2.1. Participation of people belonging to Religious Minorities Scholarly literature offers no preliminary insights on the status of participation of people from religious minorities in Pakistani trade unions. Most respondents for this study reported that the participation of religious minorities in their unions was minimal or even“rare”. However, Syed Zulfiqar Shah, President of Sajjan Union, KMC and Municipal Worker Trade Union Alliance estimated their participation in the Alliance at 20%. Iqtidar, a former trade union leader at the Metro Cash and Carry Union mentioned a significant number of Christian and Hindu workers in the“housekeeping" department of the enterprise. Both these claims point to the greater concentration of religious minorities in certain kinds of work due to social barriers that restrict their participation in more lucrative jobs. There are no laws or affirmative action policies that reserve trade union seats specifically for people belonging to religious minorities. However, in some organizations such as the KMC, there is a governmental allocation of two union office seats for religious minorities. These allocated seats can be among the senior-most posts as well. Currently, the Chairman of a utility board and the General Secretary of a District Municipal Corporation are Christian. In most unions, though their participation in senior leadership roles remains constrained. Mirza Maqsood put this on the electoral process: “Wherever there is greater strength in numbers, their participation becomes the TU’s need so that through them the minority votes are in their favour.” 27