Dr. Babar Jamal (Ambassador, Pakistan)

Dr. Babar Jamal is a visionary anthropologist whose career demonstrates how research can become a force for liberation. Beginning with grassroots social welfare initiatives as a matric student, he has built a lifelong commitment to human development, championing the rights of women and children and fighting for the education of out-of-school youth. Dr. Jamal treats ethnographic engagement as the starting point for direct, compassionate action, turning deep societal understanding into practical interventions. This conviction for genuine human development is rooted in the dignity of every individual, and spans his career. He is passionate to expose the underlying political economy and brutal realities of trafficking, defending the rights of women and children, or advocating for educational access; he focuses on the gap between academic insight and tangible change. An anthropologist by training and a humanitarian by calling, Dr. Jamal weaves rigorous public policy analysis with fierce advocacy and on-the-ground action. His scholarship on trafficking and exploitation provides the evidential foundation for advocacy, policy reform, and systemic change. In this way he models a rare kind of engaged intellectual, one whose ideas are measured by their impact. At the heart of Dr. Jamal’s distinguished career is a powerful proposition: anthropology must be an active, moral force in the world. He has pioneered a praxis where deep ethnographic work naturally evolves into a comprehensive human-rights framework. His journey from grassroots social welfare to the forefront of human-rights advocacy shows that rigorous scholarship and profound empathy are not only compatible but essential partners in the pursuit of justice. By coupling analytical rigour with lived compassion, Dr. Babar Jamal demonstrates that the highest form of knowledge is transformative action, and he inspires others to follow the same path toward a more dignified and equitable world.