Seventeen-year-old Malala Yousafsai wins Nobel Peace Award 2014 for letting her voice out advocating that girls her age should get education in Pakistan. She shares the prestige with a 60-year-old Indian activitst Sailash Satyarthi whose advocacy is child exploitation and trafficking in his region. Both winners will share the $1.1 million prize.
According to Nobel Peace Organizers, both Yousafsai and Satyarthi were bestowed the award "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."
Aside from her tender age, what made Yousafsai more special in the eyes of the Nobel organizers and the world as well, was the ordeal of a gunshot that passed through her head by the Talibans two years ago while she was riding the school bus. She is now studying in Birmingham, UK, where she received medical treatment.
Malala, who was born in the Swat region in Pakistan, took her strong stance on gender equality in acquiring education from her dad, Ziauddin. In an interview with The Guardian, Malala's father said his own father limited provision of education only to him and his brother but "didn't send my sisters to school." He saw this as injustice that when the time came, he put up a private school for boys and girls to voice out his statement against gender discrimination on education.
When Taliban had full control of the Swat region in 2008, over 400 schools were closed. According to a Time magazine article, Ziauddin transferred then 11-year-old Malala to Peshawar where the Nobel Prize winner delivered a speech, "How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education" in front of national press.
Malala started contributing articles for BBC in 2009 under the alias, Gul Makai which means 'grief stricken'. "My mother liked my pen name 'Gul Makai' and said to my father 'why not change her name to Gul Makai?' I also like the name because my real name means 'grief stricken'."
That grief came in 2012 when she survived an assassination attempt. In a Time article published two years ago, Taliban Swat commander Sirajuddin Ahmad admitted they were behind the foiled assassination attempt against Malala. "We did not want to kill her, as we knew it would cause us a bad name in the media. But there was no other option," the senior commander and spokesman for the Swat Taliban.
