British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has unveiled its annual list of 100 inspirational and innovation women for 2017, featuring two Pakistani women; 25-year-old musical personality Momina Mushtehsan and London acid-attack victim Resham Khan.
Currently, it has released the first 60 names which include NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, England footballer Steph Houghton, and Liberian President Ellen John son Sirleaf. The remaining 40 names will be added in the list next month (October).
The yearly series intends to encourage women to make a change while highlighting issues affecting women from all over the world.
The list also includes performance poet Rupi Kaur, of Milk and Honey, and TV star Jin Xing.
This would be BBC’s fifth edition of 100 Women, which will be addressing four issues; street harassment, the glass ceiling, sexism in sport, and female illiteracy.
The glass ceiling challenge is based in San Francisco, the female illiteracy challenge is based in Delhi, the street harassment challenge is based in London with help from a team in Nairobi, and the sexism in sport is based in Rio.
“In 2015, women hosted 150 debates in 10 languages and 30 countries, in 2016, people added 450 deserving but over-looked women to Wikipedia, and now in 2017 we’re taking it to a whole new level of participation,” says 100 Women editor Fiona Crack. “It’s going to be exciting but nerve-racking to see what these talented 100 will come up with and if they can pull it off in a month.”
According BBC website, the women will share their experiences and create innovative ways to tackle the four issues.
Momina Mustehsan’s picture shines brightly on the BBC website, officially describing her as a musician featuring a quote from her that reads, “The quote that helped me the most with my life was: It only gets better when you get better. Would you believe I found this in the inside a New York takeaway fortune cookie when I was binge-eating my way through depression? That woke me up.”
“Momina is an engineer, mathematician, musician, and an ambassador for a cricket team in Islamabad” is how the website described her.
Besides Momina, the second Pakistani woman to get the recognition is Resham Khan, an aspiring model, who survived an acid attack in June this year in London and pictures of the incident went terribly viral on the internet.
On June 24, Resham Khan was out driving with 37-year-old Jameel Muhktar, when they suffered an unprovoked attack at traffic lights in Beckton, East London.
“The pain was excruciating,” Ms Khan wrote on Twitter. “My cousin struggled to get us away. I saw my clothes burn away in front of me.”
The incident made headlines over the world, and the model was left with “life-changing” injuries. The brave 21-year-old student had been documenting her recovery on social media and her blog and posted a picture of her face after months of painful recovery.
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With a picture of Resham prior to the injuries, her BBC facewall reads, “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it – John Maxwell”. And the website reads, “Resham Khan is a student from Manchester who has refused to hide away from the world when it has seemed the scariest”.
Both women featured on BBC’s top 60 have fought their own battles and emerged as clear victors.
