In the wake of harassment incidents occurring all around the world, fashion model and now first official Pakistani spokesperson for clothing brand Mango, Zara Peerzada speaks up against the solicitation of women in the entertainment industry.
Earlier this morning Zara took to Instagram to share her experience. She stated that she was sharing her story because she feels that speaking about such issues will break the culture of silence. She uploaded screenshots of messages she received from an account named top_celebrity-service. In this conversation this person who contacted her offered her to work with their agency, but obviously for wrong means.
Top Celebrity Services said, “Hi we will pay u 200k for work. We deal only in celebrities, models, news anchor. We have high profile clients from abroad and Pakistan. If u will work with us we will surely prefer your privacy and dignity. We don’t do work like third class agencies. We deal in corporate side as well. If you have any query feel free to contacts us. Thanks.â€
According to this person, showbiz is all about having fun and when he said this line to Zara, she got really fumed up. She said, ” This is only a fraction of what women in entertainment suffer on a daily basis, whether we are Meesha Shafi, Mahira Khan or just a small time model.”
After Zara replied to the person behind this account, things took a repulsive turn and he adopted an abusive tone towards the model.
According to Zara, models have to deal with constant threats and abuses because of the cultural and national perspective of women in entertainment. She stated, “Telling woman to ignore their reality is never the answer, it is not the job of women to ignore the evil in the world and to turn a blind eye to cultural and global offenses to us. It is our job to collectively call them out and rectify them.”
In a photo uploaded on Instagram, Zara wrote about how she felt about this situation:
This is not the first time that a woman has spoken up about being a target of harassment in the industry. Earlier, model and singer Meesha Shafi accused fellow artist Ali Zafar of harassing her at multiple occasions and that issue is apparently being resolved legally.
