Carving Space
- Role
- Illustrator, commission
- Year
- 2026
- Client
- Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES)
- Scope
- Editorial illustration, Visual narrative, Title illustration, Eight-panel sequence
Illustrating a trade union leader’s life for Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Carving Space is an eight-panel visual interpretation of Aima Mehmood’s interview for the monograph Women Leaders in Trade Unions of Pakistan.
The brief
- 7,096
- registered trade unions in Pakistan
- 1.4 million
- union members
- About 2%
- of that membership are women
Women hold close to two per cent of trade union membership, in a country where women are just under half the population. The gap is not only numerical. There is a long habit of writing women out of the labour movement’s record, so that the movement remembers itself as something men built alone.
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung commissioned a monograph to push against that. Eleven women, trade unionists and labour organisers from different classes, regions and backgrounds, gave first-hand accounts of how they came into the movement and what it cost them. Saba Gul Khattak conducted, transcribed and translated the interviews between November and December 2024.
I was asked to illustrate one of them. The brief carried a hard constraint: the research framing was not to be touched, only the testimony. The interview stayed the source, and the images had to serve it rather than decorate it.
Aima’s story
Aima Mehmood is General Secretary of the All Pakistan Trade Union Federation (Punjab). Her father, Chaudhry Gulzar Ahmed, was a prominent union leader in the 1970s, and she grew up at his rallies. In 1986, under General Zia’s regime, he lost his job for his union work, and the family carried the weight of it.
She went on to help form the Sanati Mazdoor Ittehad, an alliance that pushes for young and women workers to lead, not sit in as tokens. Her testimony runs from that childhood to the alliance, and that arc became the sequence.
Process
I broke the interview into eight moments and drew each in ink before colour, keeping a line of her own words in every panel. The title illustration came from a single idea: Aima stands tall with a lantern pushing the dark back, and her shadow is a small girl holding her father’s hand.
Our fight is not just against capitalism. It is for dignity, equality, and a future where women lead without fear.
The panels
The title illustration and the eight panels, in order. Select one to read it full screen.
Title: Carving Space, Journey Through Trade Union Struggles in Pakistan
1. “I grew up surrounded by trade union activism. My father was my role model.”
2. “When my father lost his job, we all had to take responsibility. It was a hard time.”
3. “Socialist ideals shaped my belief in dignity of work and workers’ rights.”
4. “Women’s voices were ignored, their struggles sidelined.”
5. “We formed a new alliance for women, youth, and workers.”
6. “Our struggle brought real changes, laws for women workers, recognition for the informal sector.”
7. “Women must not just be present, they must lead.”
8. “Our fight is not just against capitalism, it is for dignity, equality, and a future where women lead without fear.”
Inks first
Credits
- Aima MehmoodInterviewee
- Saba Gul KhattakInterviews, transcription and translation
- Friedrich-Ebert-StiftungCommissioned the monograph