Pakistani Activist Ayisha Siddiqa Among TIME's Women of the Year

Pakistani Activist Ayisha Siddiqa Among TIME's Women of the Year
Pakistani activist Ayisha Siddiqa has been featured among TIME Magazine's Women of the Year 2023 list.

It was released on Thursday and "examines the most uplifting form of influence by spotlighting leaders who are using their voices to fight for a more equal world".

The 12 women –  chosen for the honours from different parts of the world – hail from sports and politics to activism and arts.

Ayisha Siddiqa is a 24-year-old defender of rights and climate and a fan of poetry as a form of expression.

At the annual UN climate summit in Egypt in November last year, she shared an original poem So much about your sustainability, my people are dying to highlight how world leaders have failed their nations.

“I was raised with the idea that the earth is a living being, that she gives life to you and in return, you have a responsibility,” Siddiqa told TIME.

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“I think we, collectively, have come to a point where we're ignoring the cries of earth mother,” she added.

The publication further details that Siddiqa co-founded Polluters Out, a global youth activist coalition, in 2020, which helped launch the Fossil Free University, an activism training course.

She is, at the moment, working to help set up a youth climate justice fund to up the fight for the climate activists in terms of the fossil fuel industry. Her work focuses on better distributing money to grassroots activists across the world.

Further, as a research fellow for the Climate Litigation Accelerator project at New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, the Pakistani activist is helping to create a system of support that connects the leaders and local activists. The activist also focuses on enriching the climate law with the human and nature rights.

“This work is definitely intergenerational,” she said. “I am young now. Tomorrow, I won’t be. I absolutely love working with people younger than me to pass on this knowledge so that the chain never breaks.”