Malala’s improbable journey to Nobel Peace Prize

ABOUT KAILAH SATYARTHI

Kailah Satyarthi shared the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday with Malala Yousafzai — a symbolic gesture by the Nobel committee toward damping the conflict between Malala’s Pakistan and Satyarthi’s India. More about the dedicated opponent of child labor and trafficking:

Source: New York Times, Guardian

The 17-year-old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for daring to want an education learned she had become the youngest Nobel laureate ever Friday while attending classes at her high school s in Birmingham, the city in central England she now calls home.

She traveled to Birmingham for medical treatment after being targeted by the Taliban two years ago for standing up to the group’s hard-line interpretation of Islam that limits girls’ access to education.

“This award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard. I speak for them and I stand up with them,” she said at a news conference Friday at Birmingham Library. “They have rights. They have the right to receive a quality education. They have the right not to suffer from child labor, not to suffer from child trafficking. They have the right to live a happy life.”

She said it was an honor to share the prize with Kailash Satyarthi of India, 60, who has spent a lifetime standing up against child slavery and exploitation. And she invited the prime ministers of their two rival nations, India and Pakistan, to attend the Nobel awards ceremony.

Malala’s case won worldwide recognition, and the teen became a symbol for the struggle for women’s rights in Pakistan. In an indication of her reach, she spoke before the United Nations and made the shortlist for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2012.

But the journey was simply improbable.

On Oct. 9, 2012, Malala, then 15, climbed into the back of a pick-up truck used to transport Swat Valley children home from school. They laughed and talked as the truck rumbled over roads lined with pot holes.

As they approached a narrow bridge, a masked man with a gun stopped the truck. Another man with a pistol jumped into the back.

“Who is Malala?” he shouted.

The girls did not answer but heads automatically swiveled toward her. The man raised his pistol. One bullet hit Malala on the top of her head. Two other students were also wounded, less seriously.

Malala was transferred to a military hospital near Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, as her head swelled dangerously. Her father, Ziauddin, was certain his daughter would not survive the night.

Pakistani doctors removed a bullet that entered her head and traveled toward her spine before she was flown to Britain for more specialized brain trauma care. She woke up a week later at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

Three months later she walked out of the hospital.

She went back to school as soon as she could. All the while, she campaigned for the rights of children to an education — meeting President Barack Obama, attending rights conferences, becoming the keynote speaker at corporate events in London. She began rubbing elbows with people who had the power and the money to help her realize her dreams.

All along, she delighted many by simply being young, determined and most of all, herself.

And on Friday, the people who helped her on the journey — and those just touched by her story along the way — couldn’t help but be swept up by the magic of it all.

“Malala is an inspiration for the many women in Afghanistan and Pakistan who have been fighting for their rights and struggling against the misogynous policies of the Taliban and local warlords,” said David Cortright, co-author of “Afghan Women Speak” and a professor at the University of Notre Dame.

“As we know, people learn best from personal stories. Malala’s story is a powerful antidote to extremist propaganda, and the Nobel Prize reinforces its impact,” he said.

Malala remains determined to return to Pakistan one day and enter politics.

She will split a $1.1 million Nobel award with co-winner Satyarthi. Malala said the joint prize sends a message that the people of their rival nations — and Hindus and Muslims — can work together.