Pakistani Teen Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating girls’ right to education, won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

Aged 17, Yousafzai, so far, is the youngest Nobel Prize winner of the accolade.

The teen was picked for her struggle against the oppression of children and young people, and for the right of all children to education, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

Yousafzai won the award along with Indian campaigner against child trafficking and labor, Kailash Satyarthi.

The sharing of the award between an Indian and a Pakistani came after a week of hostilities along the border of the disputed, mainly Muslim region of Kashmir – the worst fighting between the nuclear-armed rivals in more than a decade, report said.

Thorbjoern Jagland, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said the Nobel Committee regards it as “an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism.”

Yousafzai was shot in her head in 2012 on a school bus in the Swat Valley of northwest Pakistan by masked gunmen. Report said it was a punishment for her for a blog that Yousafzai wrote for the BBC’s Urdu service as an 11-year-old to campaign against the Taliban’s efforts to deny women an education.

After her recovery, Yousafzai moved to England, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.

Image Credit: theadvocate.com