KARACHI, Pakistan -- Madiha Khan's life was upended three years ago when an illness left her husband partially paralyzed. The 33-year-old from a middle-class Karachi neighborhood suddenly found herself struggling to look after school-age children and a bed-ridden spouse, with no income.
The cost of commuting in a rickshaw between home, school and hospital was digging into the family's dwindling finances. Taking decrepit public buses meant long waits and putting up with harassment from men on the streets, a common experience for many lone women in Pakistan.
