Deaf Pakistani outfitter tailors the way for workers with disabilities

At Haroon Razzaq’s tailor shop in Quetta there is little chatter. Workers are busy completing orders and only the whirring of sewing machines fills the space. Many of them, including the master outfitter, cannot hear it.

Born deaf, Razzaq learnt his profession at the age of 15 and has been sewing clothes for the past 50 years.

Knowing different socio-cultural and economic difficulties living with a disability poses in Pakistan, when he opened his own shop in 1983, he also created a space where he could empower others.

“I have started hiring deaf and hard of hearing workers in my shop to give them jobs,” Razzaq told Arab News at his shop in Yat Road, Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan.

“In our society, the majority of people with physical or other impairments start begging in order to sustain themselves, or their families consider them as a burden.”