The Sidra Swindler: How Financially Vulnerable Women Lost Millions to Committee Scam
Words by Maryam Aftab
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The Sidra Swindler: How Financially Vulnerable Women Lost Millions to Committee Scam
The other night, as I was scrolling away on Facebook, I stumbled upon a post where several members of a group were discussing The Sidra Swindler. Some called her the Anna Delvey of Pakistan and others said that the Netflix show, The Tinder Swindler, got nothing on her. A home-cooked story of embezzlement with a whopping 420 million rupees at stake; it was no joke. Curiously, I dug in, one thread led to another, as I dived into the rabbit hole, much like the protagonist of this developing story at hand. About two weeks ago, entrepreneur and micro-influencer, Sidra Humaid, after running committees for years, issued a public apology and declared bankruptcy. She owned up to having lost control while rolling committees after committees and causing loss of millions of rupees. She further assured everyone that she wasn’t running away and asked people to continue to support her business as she navigates through this mess and spends the rest of her life paying back every single penny. The magnitude of this was so enormous that a simple sob story wasn’t cutting it. Soon it created a social media frenzy as the victims began to speak up, majority of whom were homemakers.
But who is Sidra? Why did so many women trust her with millions worth of life savings? What even are committees?
Facebook groups like “Soul Sisters Pakistan” and “Soul Bitches” have rose to popularity amongst Desi women over the past decade, giving them a space to speak their hearts, seek all sorts of informal help from legal advice to emotional support, discuss a myriad of topics, bond with other women and create a sense of community in an otherwise patriarchal society where female voices often go unheard and public spaces are inaccessible at large. In such a networking space, online clout and confidence of others goes a long way. Sidra Humaid has been a prominent member of these groups. She is a mom blogger and micro influencer, and an entrepreneur who gained popularity through her two online businesses where she sold crochet and lasagna, respectively. She also exhibited a religiously inclined persona, regularly organized dars/Islamic lectures, which contributed towards her public trust and goodwill in a Muslim majority society. All of this made her the perfect candidate for a committee leader, which is a money saving system widely based on social trust.