Umama Saleem and Faryal Anwar are the first and only licensed female crane operators in Pakistan. They operate big quay cranes and handle dozens of containers at Karachi port regularly.

The young girls said that it was not a cake walk for them to make a place in the male-dominated engineering sector which deals with cargo handling.

Umama is an electrical engineer who graduated from the NED University, while Faryal, an electronics engineer, graduated from Dawood University in Karachi.

Umama started her career as a managerial trainee with Fauji Fertilisers, but the job did not suit her as she had to work in remote districts of Sindh. Later, she joined Hutchison Ports Pakistan as a trainee in 2017 and within few months she was made permanent. While Faryal was working as a service engineer with a firm before joining the company.