Women-led Karachi motorcycle rally pushes breast cancer awareness

A women-led motorcycle rally rode through Karachi on Sunday to push breast cancer awareness and early detection, taking the message onto one of the city's busiest roads rather than into a lecture hall.

The second edition of the Cuties on Scooties Rally was organised by Z Volta, a Pakistani electric mobility company that works on charging infrastructure including for electric two-wheelers, in collaboration with the Karachi Bikers Club. According to Business Recorder, which reported the event, riders set off from Z Volta's headquarters and travelled along Shahrah-e-Faisal towards Avari Tower before returning to the starting point, accompanied by rally marshals and traffic police.

Anusha Shahid, chief executive officer and co-founder of Z Volta, said the ride was intended to widen the conversation around women's health. "This time, the ride is for a cause because we want to power bigger conversations," she said, adding that women often forget to put their own wellbeing first and that the rally was meant to remind them to do so.

Dr Rafia Haleem Shaikh, a general surgeon who joined the event, said women of all ages needed to understand what the disease is, which warning signs to watch for and when to seek a medical assessment. "We cannot always prevent it from occurring, but we can detect it early and save lives," she said, according to Business Recorder.

The scale of the disease gives the campaign its urgency. The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimated 30,682 new breast cancer cases among women in Pakistan in 2022. Globally, the World Health Organization estimated about 2.4 million women were diagnosed and roughly 694,000 deaths occurred in 2024, the outlet reported.

Hadiqa Murtaza of the Karachi Bikers Club's female wing said the club had recently formed a dedicated wing to draw more women into riding and touring, with short rides across Sindh that help riders build confidence in a activity long seen as male-dominated. "In the past, people might not even have imagined women riding motorcycles, particularly heavy bikes, or going on tours. Today, however, women are doing exactly that," she said.

Organisers said they hoped the sight of women riding together for the cause, and the coverage it drew, would carry the message beyond those who took part, and that the conversation should continue after October's awareness month ends.

Separately, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported that health experts at a seminar at the Polyclinic in Islamabad stressed early screening, risk assessment and modern diagnostic techniques to improve breast cancer detection and treatment. The report gave no further details of the seminar.