Three Pakistani Women Abia Akram, Malala & Laila Haidari from Pakistan were named in the BBC 100 Women of 2021 list. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the list includes the females who are reinventing society, culture, and the world.
Abia Akram, a disability rights activist, Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Laila Haidari, the founder of Mother Camp, are the ones who represent Pakistan in the list.
Samoa’s first woman prime minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, Professor Heidi J Larson, who heads The Vaccine Confidence Project, acclaimed author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and others are named in the last.
While talking about the BBC 100 Women of 2021 list, BBC said, “Women from Afghanistan make up half of this year’s list, some of whom appear under pseudonyms and without photos for their own safety.”
Laila Haidari has been included in the Science and Health category. She has helped 6,400 Afghan nationals since 2010 by setting up a drug rehabilitation center in Kabul called ‘Mother Camp’.
She founded the camp with her self-raised money and financed it by operating a restaurant, which was closed in mid-August after Kabul fell to the Taliban. The restaurant was operated by recovering addicts.
Abia Akram is an activist in the disability movement, while still being a student she began the Special Talent Exchange Program (Step) in 1997. She is also aiming to incorporate disability into the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development goals.
Here is what BBC had to say about her, “She is the first woman from Pakistan to be nominated coordinator for the Commonwealth Young Disabled People’s Forum. She is the founder of the National Forum of Women with Disabilities and has campaigned for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Inclusive Development”
Malala Yousafzai has been supporting and demanding the right of educating young women since she was 11. She is the UN’s messenger of peace and girls education activist.After being shot in October 2012, Malala recovered and continued to work as the co-founder of the non-profit Malala Fund, which aims to build a world in which every young woman can learn and lead without any fear.
