Muniba Mazari | FOS Media Students' Blog

This is a story of a woman who has shown that being disabled does not inhibit her from achieving her goals. This is the story of a woman who shows up and shows that being divorced or being a single parent doesn’t hold her back from realizing her vision. The story of one woman shows that we can accomplish what the world does not expect; we can do anything we put our minds to…

Muniba Mazari is also known as the iron lady of Pakistan. Besides being an activist and a model, Muniba Mazari is an anchor, voiceover artist, and singer. As the national ambassador for UN Women Pakistan, she represents the organization in the country.

Muniba was born in Rahim Yar Khan which is in Southern Punjab on 3 March 1987. She’s from the Baloch tribe. With a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, she is skilled in drawing and painting. However, she became married at the age of 18 for her father’s sake, though she had not yet completed her studies. She was tragically involved in a fatal accident that marked a major turning point in her life.

In 2007, Muniba suffered injuries when her husband dozed off behind the wheel as she was traveling to her hometown. Her husband was able to save himself by jumping out. However, Muniba had become trapped inside the car and fell into a ditch. She sustained a lot of injuries. Besides the radius ulna of the right hand, the wrist hand, shoulder bone, collar bone, and ribcage were also fractured. Since the ribcage was damaged, the liver and lungs were also badly injured. After many more battles, people can drag her from the car. However, there was neither an ambulance nor a hospital nearby. Despite living two hours away from the hospital, they take her there on a four-wheel jeep. She was paralyzed on one side and underwent multiple surgeries. Several titanium implants have been placed in her arm and back. she was left bed-ridden for two years.

For Muniba Mazari, her true strength was always her mother, who constantly motivated and heightened her spirits. However, in the middle of getting over that bad time, she had another tragedy to contend with. Her husband divorced her and married another woman because she had an intellectual disability. Their family has been left in so much pain not only by her husband but her father as well.

Muniba started painting on her hospital bed. She uses acrylics on canvas as her medium. She created her own art brand called Muniba’s Canvas, which has the slogan Let Your Walls Wear Colors. Rather than allowing the agony of spinal cord injury to discourage her, she uses her artwork as an outlet for her feelings. She has exhibited her work, including exhibitions that lasted six days, and done a lot of modeling campaigns and she has broken the mold on modeling. A little boy named Nael Mazari, that she adopted when he was 2 years old, is another accomplishment of hers.

Her first break came as a speaker at the TED talks in Islamabad as one of Pakistan’s first wheelchair-bound artists. Likewise, she is actively committed to helping underprivileged children and ensuring their education. Throughout her career, she has continuously advocated against child abuse, gender discrimination, etc. Muniba Mazari has also been included in the BBC’s list of 100 most influential women for 2015 as well as the 500 most influential Muslims worldwide for 2015.