Malala Yousafzai

Imagine being 15 years old again. What were you concerned with at that age? Boys? Girls? If your hair looked okay, or if your jeans were in style? If you were like most people your concerns, while they felt massively important to you at the time, probably seem a like a trifle today.

Now imagine being 15, living in Pakistan, and being the daughter of an activist for educational rights. Being an activist yourself. Being recognized for your effort to promote education for girls in your country. Being awarded for them. And, in turn, being marked for death because of them.

Imagine being that young and standing before the United Nations, knowing that people worldwide will hear your words and urging the world’s leaders to take your cause seriously. Telling them that it is “not only each child's right to get education, rather it is their duty and responsibility” (Theirworld) and that the UN should be working towards ensuring that all children can fulfil that duty.

It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? However, for Malala Yousafzai that is simply a part of her life.

Malala’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai has always been an outspoken opponent of the Taliban’s efforts to restrict education and stop girls entirely from being educated outside of the home. Much of her education came directly from Ziauddin and as a young girl she often stayed up at night to discuss politics with him. Her life as an activist publicly started in 2008, when she was only 11 years old. She addressed the press club in Peshawar with a speech that was covered by newspapers and television channels throughout the region. In her remarks, she boldly asked, “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” (Westhead)

This strong statement was only the start for Malala. Not long after it the BBC Urdu website approached her father, who ran sever schools in the area, wanting to enlist a school girl to anonymously blog about her life to cover the Taliban’s growing influence on the region. At that time, Taliban militants were taking over the area, banning media, girl’s education, and even stopping women from going out shopping. At first another girl had agreed to write a diary, but fear of Taliban’s possible reprisal caused her decline the offer. Finally, it was decided that Malala was the only one willing to take the risk. (Cooke)

To protect her identity, she did not post the blog entries herself. Instead she passed handwritten entries to a reporter who would then scan and email them to the BBC Urdu website to post (News). Her first entry was published on January 3, 2009. Her blog detailed her thoughts as violence broke out where she lived, as fewer and fewer girls showed up for classes and finally when her school was shut down. (Yousafzai) Not long after Malala started her blog Mullah Shah Doran, the second in command of the Taliban in Swat Valley, announced the Talban’s newest edict in the area. “From January 15, girls will not be allowed to attend schools” was the main message in his address and he voiced his belief that educating girls was “un-Islamic”. (Times) The group made it clear that they intended to enforce their new rule through violence and fear and had, at the time, already blown up more than 100 girl’s only schools.

Backlash throughout the region convinced the Taliban to agree to a short-lived cease fire and lift their restriction on girls in school after less than a month. They did so on the condition the girls attending class wear burkas. When Malala could return to school it was to find that out of 700 children enrolled only about 70 had shown up. Many children were most likely kept at home in fear of the Taliban, but Malala would not be driven away by fear. “We were scared,” she wrote in her autobiography I Am Malala, “but our fear was not as strong as our courage.” (Yousafzai, Lamb)

After her blog ended in March of that year, the New York Times approached her to film a documentary. Class Dismissed: The Death of Female Education (Ellick) was released in 2009 and tells the graphic and emotional story of the events surrounding the Taliban’s edict as it went into effect. Not surprisingly it drew more attention both to what was happening in Pakistan and to Malala herself. She was interviewed by a local television station, their local newspaper and even publications as far away as Canada’s Toronto Star. Through this publicity her BBC blogging identity was revealed and she used this attention to publicly advocate for female education.

In October of 2011 she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize of the Dutch International Children’s advocacy group The KidsRight Foundation by South African Activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In his nomination, he wrote, "Malala dared to stand up for herself and other girls and used national and international media to let the world know girls should also have the right to go to school." (Tutu) While she did not win that prize she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peach Prize. At her request the Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, directed authorities to set up an IT Campus in the Swat Degree College for Women and renamed a secondary school in her honor. By the next year, Malala was planning to create her own organization, the Malala Education Foundation, to help poor girls attend school. (Peer)

Not all of the attention drawn by Malala’s actions was positive. As her recognition grew she started receiving threats. In newspapers, papers slipped under her door and online she was harassed and threatened with death if she did not back down from her public stance on education. In the summer of 2012 Taliban leaders decided unanimously that she needed to be killed. On October 9, 2012 15-year-old Malala was on bus after taking an exam at school when it was stopped by a Taliban gunman. He demanded she identify herself, threatening to kill

everyone on the bus if she did not stand up. When she did, he shot at her. One bullet struck her, going through her head and neck before stopping in her shoulder. (Walsh)

Over the next few days she was treated at two different hospitals in Pakistan. Offers to treat her injuries came in from around the world. She was flown to the United Kingdom’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital that specializes in the treatment of military personal injured in combat. She woke up there, 8 days after being shot in the head, and was declared as stable by the 20th of October. Malala stayed in the hospital for about three months before being discharged in January 2013 but was still recovering and underwent another surgery in February to reconstruct her skull.

The Taliban openly claimed responsibility for the attack. Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesperson for the radical group, confirmed their intention to kill Malala. He referred to her crusade for education rights as obscene. “She has become a symbol of Western culture in the area; she was openly propagating it,” he said before claiming that if she survived they would certainly try again. “Let this be a lesson.” (Walsh)

While many people would take this time to recover and be hesitant to start publicly advocating for their cause again, Malala did not let fear control her actions. She would not be silenced by threats or violence and never doubted her ability to bring about change. In I Am Malala she posed the question “If one man can destroy everything, why can't one girl change it?” (Yousafzai, Lamb) and it’s a perfect example of her mindset after the attack. One man, acting on the orders of many men, tried to destroy her and in turn destroy her message to the world and he failed. In fact the botched assassination brought Malala, and her cause, international attention on a much larger scale than anything she had received before. After recovering she met with several world leaders and on her 16th she birthday addressed the United Nations.

The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and

courage was born ... I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists – Malala Yousafai to the United Nations on July, 12, 2013

That same year she and her father co-founded her nor-for-profit organization The Malala Fund to bring awareness to the social and economic impact of girl’s education and empower girls to raise their voices, reach their potential, and demand change. The organization advocates for resources and policy changes that are needed to ensure that all girls, everywhere, can complete 12 years of school. They currently have programs that work with local organizations in Pakistan to increase the number of girls enrolled in secondary school and alternative learning programs in northern Nigeria that help strengthen girls’ academic and life skills. The Malala Fund also has a strong presence in places such as Lebanon, Jordan and Kenya to provide Syrian refugees and girls in Nairobi’s slums with education they would otherwise be denied. (Malala Fund)

Not long after founding The Malala Fund she was announced as the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and the right of all children to education. At 17 she is the youngest Nobel Prize winner and she shared the prize with another children’s rights activist, Kailashi Satyarthi of India. (Nobel Media)

On her 18th birthday, in 2015, she opened a school in Bekka Valley, Lebanon near the Syrian border for Syrian refugees. The school was funded by The Malala Fund and offers education and training to girls aged 14 to 18. In a statement she made at the opening of the school she urged leaders of the world to start investing in “books, not bullets.” (Malala Fund)

Malala’s story of her refusal to stand down in the face of adversary and danger, should be an example to people worldwide. The struggle for equal education between boys and girls is not a problem that only exists in Pakistan, or is unique the Middle East. Worldwide women are not given the same educational opportunities are their male counterparts.

It is not enough to fight simply for equal educations rights for young girls, but instead for all genders everywhere and at every educational level. However, making sure our children are educated, something Malala has dedicated her life to, is a good start.

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