Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai wins EU’s Sakharov rights prize
Malala has become a global icon of the struggle for girls’ education and peace
Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan’s teenage activist, on Thursday was awarded the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize.
“Today, we decided to let the world know that our hope for a better future stands in young people like Malala Yousafzai,” said the chairman of the conservative European People’s Party (EPP).
Malala, the Pakistani schoolgirl campaigner who survived a Taliban murder attempt last year, has become a global icon of the struggle for girls’ education and peace.
Nothing changed in my life, except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born
In her courageous recovery from being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, the 16-year-old has emerged as a beacon for all those who seek to overcome violence and intolerance with dignity.
She received a standing ovation for an address to the United Nations General Assembly in July in which she vowed she would never be silenced.
Malala first rose to prominence in 2009, aged just 11, with a blog for the BBC Urdu service chronicling life under Taliban rule in Swat, the beautiful valley in northwestern Pakistan where she lived.
In 2007 the Islamist militants had taken over the area, which Malala affectionately called “My Swat”, and imposed a brutal, bloody rule.
Opponents were murdered, people were publicly flogged for supposed breaches of sharia law, women were banned from going to market – and girls were stopped from going to school.
