Malala Yousafzai

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Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997 and is a Pakistani


activist.
She was the youngest person to receive a Nobel Prize. She is
known primarily for defending women's human rights and access
to education in her home region of the Suate Valley in Pakistan's
northeastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the local
Taliban prevent young people from attending school. Since then,
Malala's activism has become an international movement.
Malala's family has managed several schools in the region. In
early 2009, when she was 11-12 years old, Malala wrote a blog
for the BBC under a pseudonym, in which she detailed her daily
life during the Taliban occupation, their attempts to control the
valley and her views on promoting education for young women
in the Suate valley. The following summer, the New York Times
published a documentary about Malala's daily life while the
Pakistani army intervened in the region. Malala's popularity
increased considerably, giving interviews in the press and on
television and being nominated for the international Children's
Award by South African activist Desmond Tutu.
On the afternoon of October 9, 2012, Malala was on bus in
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and armed man called her by
name, pointed a pistol at her and fired three shots. One of the
bullets hit the left side of the forehead and travelled inside the
skin, along the face to the shoulder. In the days following the
attack, Malala remained unconscious and in serious condition.
When her clinical condition improved, she was transferred to a
hospital in Birmingham, England. On October 12, a group of 50
Pakistani Islamic clerics issued a legal ruling based on Islamic law
against the men who tried to kill her, but the Taliban tried again
to kill Malala. The assassination attempt triggered a movement
of national and international support. Deutsche Welle wrote in
2013 that Malala had become "the most famous teenager in the
world". United Nations special envoy for global education
Gordon Brown launched a UN petition in Malala's name with the
slogan I am Malala, demanding that all the world's children be
enrolled in school by the end of 2015, a petition that pushed for
the rectification of the first right to education law in Pakistan.
On April 29, 2013, Malala was on the cover of Time magazine and
considered one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
On July 12 of the same year, Malala spoke at the headquarters of
the United Nations, calling for universal access to education.
Malala was also honored with the 2013 Sakharov Prize. In
February 2014, she was nominated for the World Children's Prize
in Sweden. On October 10, the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to
Malala was announced for her fight against the repression of
children and young people and for the right of all children to
education. At just 17 years old, Malala shared the Nobel Prize
with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children's rights activist

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