17-year-old Pakistani woman Malala Yousafzai has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, two years and a day after she was shot in the head by Taliban fighters for speaking out for the rights of girls to get an education. Time Magazine report that this makes Yousafzai the youngest ever recipient of the prestigious prize.
Yousafzai has led an amazing life, in spite of her young years. At the age of 11, she wrote a blog anonymously for the BBC about life under Tailban occupation in her native Swat Valley, where girls had been banned from attending school. She soon rose to prominence, and was interviewed by various international outlets, and praised for speaking out in favour of education.
Though the Pakistani military later intervened in Swat, there remained a Taliban presence in the area. One fateful afternoon in October 2012, the then 15-year-old Yousafzai boarded a school bus, where a waiting gunman asked for her by name, and then fired three shots, one of which hit the left side of her forehead and traveled to her shoulder.
Miraculously, she survived the attack, and was transferred to a hospital in Birmingham, England, where she made a recovery. Her name has since become synonymous with education reform in Pakistan and around the world, and her campaign ‘I Am Malala’ aims to ensure that all children around the world are able to attend school by the end of 2015.
Yousafzai was awarded the prize jointly with Kailash Satyarthi, a children’s rights campaigner from neighbouring India. The Nobel Committee noted that “it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism” in their statement, as the prize was awarded.
Though Yousafzai and her family, who now live in England, reportedly still receive death threats from the Pakistani Taliban, her determination to fight for education has not been dampened.
Photo: Christopher Furlong via Getty Images
