ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani shepherdess from the remote mountainous Shimshal valley and a midwife who provided life-saving care during record breaking floods last year have been featured on the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2023.
Among the 100 women on the list are attorney and former US First Lady Michelle Obama, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, Ballon d’Or-winning footballer Aitana Bonmatí, AI expert Timnit Gebru, feminist icon Gloria Steinem, Hollywood star America Ferrera and beauty mogul Huda Kattan.
In a year where extreme heat, wildfires, floods and other natural disasters have been dominating headlines, the list also highlights women who have been working to help their communities tackle climate change and take action to adjust to its impacts.
“One of the last Wakhi shepherdesses, Afroze-Numa has taken care of goats, yaks and sheep for almost three decades,” the BBC said, introducing the Pakistani shepherdess on its list, who was the first woman in Shimshal Valley to own a pair of shoes.
“Having learnt the trade from her mother and grandmothers, she is part of a centuries-old tradition that is now dying out in Pakistan’s Shimshal valley.”
Every year, shepherdesses like Afroze-Numa take their flocks to pastures 4,800m (16,000ft) above sea level, where they prepare dairy products to barter, while their animals feed.
The second Pakistani woman featured on the BBC list is Neha Mankani who through her charity, Mama Baby Fund, provided life-saving birthing kits and midwifery care to more than 15,000 flood-affected families.
“Her typical practice focuses on low-resourced settings, emergency response and climate-affected communities,” the BBC said. “Mama Baby Fund has now raised enough money to launch a boat ambulance that will transport pregnant women living in coastal communities to nearby hospitals and clinics for urgent treatment.”
“The work of midwives in communities facing climate-related disasters is vital,” Mankani was quoted by the BBC as saying.
“We are both first responders and climate activists, who make sure women can continue to receive the reproductive, pregnancy, and postpartum care they need, even when the situation around them is deteriorating.”
Pakistani shepherdess, midwife make it on BBC 100 Women 2023 list
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Pakistani shepherdess, midwife make it on BBC 100 Women 2023 list
- One of the last Wakhi shepherdesses, Afroze-Numa has taken care of goats, yaks and sheep for almost three decades
- Neha Mankani through her charity provided life-saving birthing kits, midwifery care to more than 15,000 flood-hit families
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Saint Levant
‘Love Letters’
With his sophomore LP, the Palestinian artist matures from viral breakout to more vulnerable, multilingual pop and R&B, shaping a compact set of love songs with a firmly Palestinian center. He braids sleek synths, North African grooves, and earworm melodies into pieces that drift between late-night infatuation and clear-eyed reflections on home, distance, and belonging. “DALOONA,” a collaboration with Shamstep pioneers 47Soul, and “KALAMANTINA,” featuring Egyptian rap star Marwan Moussa, both lean into joyful release, while “EXILE” sits with the emotional cost of separation and absence. “Love Letters” threads romance, memory, and identity into understated, exceedingly replayable art.
Zeyne
‘Awda’
Rising Palestinian-Jordanian star Zeyne uses her debut LP to alchemize the last few years of upheaval and her meteoric ascent into a 13-track map of who she is and where she comes from. Folding contemporary R&B and pop into playful rhythms, dabke pulses, and Arabic melodic turns, she sings of home, pressure, and stubborn hope on tracks that feel both diaristic and cinematic. The record shifts between tenderness, unease, and quiet celebration, while guest appearances from Saint Levant and Bayou mix perfectly with the record’s unique flavors rather than overpowering them. This is an exhilarating, soul-searching foray into Arabic alt-pop that treats vulnerability and pride as two sides of the same coin.
Yasmine Hamdan
‘I remember I forget’
A quietly piercing LP from the indie icon about what we choose to carry and what we try to erase. Recorded with her trusted musical confidant Marc Collin, the album folds muted electronics, trip-hop beats, oud, and Arabic strings into songs in which personal memory, folk echoes, and her country’s never-ending tumult blur into one. Album closer “Reminiscence” lets the record fade like a long-held breath, reminding us that Hamdan is still one of the few artists capable of molding private anxieties into a shared, luminous language.
Kazdoura
‘Ghoyoum’
The Toronto-based duo’s debut weaves a story of migration and fracture into a quietly dazzling Arabic fusion record. Vocalist Leen Hamo and multi-instrumentalist John Abou Chacra root everything in Levantine maqams, then let the songs drift toward jazz, psychedelia, and dream pop without ever losing sight of the tarab they grew up on. From the yearning of opener “Marhaba Ahlen” and the fiery feminist chant of “Ya Banat” to the reworked folk of “Hmool El Safar” and the woozy sway of “Khayal” and “Titi Titi,” they sculpt homesickness, resilience, and slow healing into something genuinely transformative.
Tamara Qaddoumi
‘The Murmur’
On her first full-length album, Tamara Qaddoumi stretches the trip-hop and shadowy pop universe she explored on 2021’s EP “Soft Glitch” into a deeper, intensely moving world. Written with longtime collaborator Antonio Hajj, and produced by indie mainstay Fadi Tabbal, “The Murmer” leans on low-end throb, smoldering synths, and incisive guitar lines that feel both intimate and vast. Her voice hovers between confession and spell, circling questions of identity, grief, and attachment that evoke her own hybrid Kuwaiti, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Scottish heritage. The result is a delightfully cobwebby, absorbing LP that lingers long after it ends.
Sanam
‘Sametou Sawtan’
Recorded between Beirut, Byblos, and Paris, “Sametou Sawtan” – Arabic for “I heard a voice” – is a poignant, unsettled collision of noise rock, free jazz, and Arabic folk that fizzes with tension. Produced by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, the eight tracks by the art-rock sextet are anchored by Sandy Chamoun’s remarkable vocals, which move from murmured prayer to visceral intensity, drawing on classical Arabic poetry and prose and her own lyrics to inhabit figures who are bewildered, grieving, or stubbornly alive. From the opening surge of “Harik” to the slow burn of “Hamam,” Sanam distill personal and collective unease into work that’s urgent, physical, and impossible to ignore. This is an act on the precipice of wider, global renown.
Nabeel
‘Ghayoom’
On “Ghayoom,” the Iraqi-American songwriter — real name Yasir Razak — firmly plants the flag of an audacious musical explorer venturing across roads less traveled. He sings in Arabic over a wall of distorted guitars and slowcore drums, enveloped by captivating, shoegaze-colored soundscapes. The artwork, built from worn family photographs, hints at what the music is chasing. These eight tracks pair devotional tenderness with the grit of DIY rock. Opener “Resala” aches with unsent words; “Khatil” hits with uneasy momentum; while the elegant flicker of pop-tinged moments scattered throughout the album maintain a raw and bruised edge.
Malakat
Al Anhar Wal Oyoon
On its first showcase, Jordan-based label Malakat gathers seven Arab woman artists and enables them to pull in seven different directions that end up flowing as a single current. “Al Anhar Wal Oyoon” (‘The Rivers and the Springs’), moves from Intibint’s hauntingly inspired vocalization to Liliane Chlela’s serrated electronics, and from Sukkar and DAL!A’s skewed pop to Sandy Chamoun’s voice-led piece, and Bint Mbareh’s closing track, developed in dialogue with visionary producer Nicolas Jaar. Mixed across Amman, the UK, and New York, and mastered by the highly-sought-after Heba Kadry, this is a deeply textured statement of intent from a label quietly redrawing the map of experimental Arab music.
