Ms Sherry Rehman is a senior Pakistani politician, journalist, parliamentarian and the member of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Born in Karachi, she has studied art, history and politics at Smith College Massachusetts, US; and at the University of Sussex, UK.
She was sworn in as Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting on March 31, 2008, and resigned from office on March 14, 2009.
Sherry Rehman has been a professional journalist for twenty years. She has served as Editor of Pakistan’s prestigious newsmagazine, Herald, for ten years. She has wide experience in both print and broadcast media. Her bold and creative journalistic style earned her ranking among the top journalists of the country. She has also anchored a television show on current affairs in 1999. Sherry Rehman regularly writes for national and international newspapers and newsmagazine.
In March 2008, Sherry Rehman was declared re-elected Member of the National assembly as PPP candidate from the Sindh province on the list for reserved seats for women. Previous to this she was an MNA from 2002 to 2007 and Central Information Secretary as well as President of Policy Planning of the Pakistan Peoples Party. Her interests in the National assembly include foreign and security policy, women’s status and rights legislation, and media policies. In the National assembly, Rehman has served as Convener of the Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Media and Public Diplomacy for Kashmir and Member of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir, and Foreign Relations Committee in PPP. During her five years in the parliament, Sherry Rehman moved a number of bills related to media freedom, women’s empowerment and human rights. She is the architect of all the five PPP bills tabled in the National assembly: Women Empowerment Bill, anti-Honor Killings Bill, Domestic Violence Prevention Bill, affirmative action Bill and Hudood Repeal Bill. She also moved two Bills for the Media: the Freedom of Information Bill and the Press act, which prevents working journalists from being arrested under the 1999 Press Ordinance.
She was leader of Pakistan delegation at the asian Parliamentarians’ Conference in December 2004 for the Islamabad Declaration Committee. Earlier she has had the privilege of representing Pakistan at the UN General assembly session in 1994. She has also lectured at the School of advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University in November 2004.
She served as a member of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) from 1988-1998. She also headed the team that prepared the PPP Manifesto for the 2008 elections.
In civil society, Sherry Rehman has been an active proponent for the provision of better access to health and educational resources, particularly for women and children from the lower-income sections of Pakistani society. She is the Chairman of the Lady Dufferin Foundation Trust, the largest non-profit provider of women and children’s subsidized health-care in the province of Sindh.
Sherry Rehman’s latest book “The Kashmiri Shawl:
