Fouzia Saeed

Fouzia Saeed, Ph.D. (born 1959 in Lahore, Pakistan) is a social activist, gender expert, trainer/facilitator, development manager, folk culture promoter, television commentator and author. She is the author of two well regarded books. The first is an ethnographic look at prostitution in Pakistan, (TABOO!: The Hidden Culture of a Red Light District (Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2001, 2nd edition 2011). The second, Working with Sharks: Countering Sexual Harassment in our Lives(Sanj, Pakistan, 2011), is an autobiographical expose on sexual harassment in the United Nations and the revenge meted out by the UN management she and 10 other women faced for making their case.

Saeed is well known in the activist circles of Pakistan's social movement, having worked for decades on women’s issues especially those linked to violence against women, prostitution, women in the entertainment business, women’s mobility and sexual harassment. Her work on violence against women spans over 20 years and includes founding Bedari, the first women’s crisis center in Pakistan in 1991. For the past several years, she has been working to reduce the level of sexual harassment and debt bondage in the country and has most recently focused her attention on the ways terrorists establish themselves in fragile communities. She organized a large gathering of citizens at the National Library on 23 June 2009 to map out a strategy for countering talibanization in Pakistan and has supported a constitutional amendment establishment local government as a third tier of the state administration

On 10 March 2009, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mr. Yousaf Raza Gilani, named Saeed to a three year term as one of the 15 members of the National Commission on the Status of Women.

The Government of Japan named Dr. Saeed as one of seven Asian Leadership Fellows for 2010. She attended the Fellowship program in Tokyo from September to November 2010 and gave lectures at numerous Japanese universities and wrote about her experiences on her return.

Dr. Saeed was awarded the 2012 Battle of Crete Award by the Oxi Day Foundation for 'courageous action for freedom and democracy' based on her decade-long struggle for the criminalization of sexual harassment in Pakistan.

Saeed says of herself: "I want to be judged by my abilities, my struggles and my achievements and not labeled or stereotyped by my gender, my economic background, my nationality or my beliefs."