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Malala Yousafzai, the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize and the Plight of Children...
Other | Friday 10th October 2014 | Osh
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban two years ago, has joined the likes of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Anan, Aung San Suu Kyi and Barak Obama in being the newest recipient of the coveted Nobel Peace Prize.
The 17 year-old campaigner has been awarded the prestigious prize for her “heroic struggle” for girls’ right to an education. She is the youngest ever winner of the prize, which makes it all the more remarkable. Malala shares the 2014 award with Indian children's rights activist, Kailash Satyarthi, the Nobel Committee choosing to focus this year's award on the theme of children's rights and child suffering.
Yousafzai first came to international notice when she began blogging for the BBC about the grimness of life under the Taliban; particularly in regard to the Taliban's curtailing of girls' rights to education. She was shot by Taliban members while on a school bus in 2012. The attack causing outrage both in Pakistan and abroad, Malala was air-lifted to the UK and her life-threatening injuries were treated at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham.
Having undergone multiple surgeries, including needing repair to a facial nerve to fix the paralysis on one side of her face, the future Nobel Prize winner remarkably suffered no lasting brain damage. In March last year she was able to begin attending school in Birmingham; a right that would've been denied to her under the Taliban.
The teenager has gone on to campaign doggedly for girls’ education; a personal quest that has including speaking before the United Nations and being invited to meet Barack Obama. Last year Malala was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
Speaking about the award, the Nobel Committee has stated: “Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education and has shown by example that children, and young people too, can contribute to improving their own situations. This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education.”
Malala's co-winner of the Peace Prize, the 60 year-old Kailash Satyarthi, has dedicated his prize to children across the world being held in slavery. He founded the organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) in 1980 and has successfully worked to protect the rights of an estimated 80,000 children.
Last October the International Labour Organisation estimated that although the figures for forced child labour had dropped by a third since the turn of the century, the estimate still stood at 168 million children. While some mistakenly perceive slavery to be a of the past, it is important to remember that child slavery, child trafficking and forced labour are major global issues of the 21st century.
The 17 year-old from Pakistan and the 60 year-old from India won the prize over 278 other nominations this year (the highest ever number) including the US whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, the Pope and the Russian Prez Vladimir Putin (we're assuming for his role in blocking the US's intended assault on Syria and not for the Ukraine business).
In regard to Malala Yousafzai, the joke ultimately is on the Taliban gunmen who tried to kill her two years ago; in doing that they ensured her international fame and set her on this historic path that has resulted in the teenager achieving a level of recognition at the age of seventeen that eludes even many life-long campaigners.
And all of this accomplished by a child who started as a humble blogger and almost didn't survive the dangers of speaking out. If anyone could deservedly be cited as a 21st century heroine, it would be Malala Yousafzai.
