Amna Buttar

Amna Buttar (born 1962) is a Pakistani Medical Doctor and a Member of Provincial Assembly of the Punjab.

Born in a Buttar Jatt family in Lahore, Amna Buttar did her MBBS from Fatima Jinnah Medical College, Lahore, and went to United States. She did her internal medicine residency from the University of Wisconsin, and fellowship in Geriatrics from the University of Michigan. She also completed a Masters in Public Health from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Buttar served as Assistant Professor of Medicine and Geriatrics in Indiana University and served as Associate Professor of same discipline in University of Wisconsin. She was serving as Director of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when she moved to Pakistan in 2007. She has written numerous book chapters in multiple textbooks, and authored many research papers including publications in prestigious journals like Annals of Internal Medicine, and the Journal of American Medical Association. She has given over 100 presentations locally, nationally, and internationally pertaining to Geriatrics Medicine. Dr. Buttar developed, and implemented four different health care programs in three different states in the US. She is recipient of prestigious Career Award by the Department of Health and Human Services in the USA, and served on advisory committee to the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the USA.

During her stay in the USA, she served in Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America as President/Secretary of FJMC alumni. She is founder president of Asian-American Network Against Abuse of human rights (ANAA). She actively advocated for human and women rights and brought cases of Mukhtar Mai and Dr Shazia Khalid to limelight all across the globe.

She has been given LeadHer Award by the Girls Learn International in New York City in 2006, in that ceremony the same award was given to Senator Hillary Clinton. She has also received Human rights award from Pakistan Peoples Party human rights wing in August 2006. She has testified to the U.S. Congress, as well as given presentation at the United Nations office in New York City in the USA.

Apart from numerous, social, charitable and welfare programs, she has started a charitable program to help poor women lingering in Pakistani Prisons for a long time having no monetary and legal support. Her interviews have appeared in local and international print and electronic media, including CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, National Public Radio of USA and many others.

Dr. Buttar resides in Lahore. She has been elected as Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Punjab from women reserved seats for Pakistan Peoples Party(PPP). She holds dual American nationality.

On 4 June 2012, the Supreme Court of Pakistan admitted a petition by the registrar's office. The petition stated that Amna Buttar holds dual Pakistani and American nationality, and hence, according to Pakistan's constitution, she is not eligible to hold public office in Pakistan. Along with Amna Buttar, the petition included names of 13 other current members of National and Provincial assemblies in Pakistan.

Amna Buttar recently criticized a Pakistani Beauty Pageant, Miss Pakistan World for being irrelevant to the problems faced by Pakistani women. "In Pakistan, we are trying to get basic rights for women: right to marry, right to divorce, equal opportunity for job and education, and issues like Miss Pakistan create problems for this movement...An average Pakistani young woman does not want to wear a bikini in public, and for her it is important to have equal opportunity and all focus should be on that, and not on a pageant where only the elite can participate."

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