Women Who Changed History

April 29, 2022

Women Who Changed History

Malala Yousafzai

The girl who took a stand up for education and was shot by the Taliban

She was born in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan, on July 12, 1997. Her father founded and maintained a school in Mingora, where she attended. Her father was also a social activist and a teacher.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacked the Swat valley, which used to be a popular tourist attraction, in 2007. The TTP undertook enforcing strict Islamic law, closing girls’ schools, prohibiting women from participating in society in any way, and carrying out suicide bombings. For their protection, Yousafzai and her family escaped the region, but they reunited when tensions and brutality subsided.

Yousafzai took her courageous move when she was 11 years old, and it was her first time speaking up against the injustice she had been subjected to. Her father drove her to a local press conference to oppose school closures, where she gave her first statement, “How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education?” In Pakistan, her speech was well-received.

A very regrettable announcement was made at the end of 2008, when the TTP stated that all females' schools in Swat will be closed. This drew the attention of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which contacted Yousafzai's father in quest of anyone who could write a blog for them about life under TTP authority.

Yousafzai kept writing frequent postings for BBC Urd under the pen name Gul Makai on her everyday life. She wrote 35 articles between January and the early march of the same year. Simultaneously, the TTP closed all girls' schools in Swat and detonated bombs in over 100 of them.

Yousafzai made another bold move in February 2009, when she was interviewed on the Pakistan current events show Capital Talk. In response to mounting public pressure across Pakistan, the TTP accepted to a disengagement, and they removed the ban on girls attending school only under a condition that they wear abayas.

She later visited with Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and requested him to assist her in her attempt to safeguard girls’ right in education in Pakistan. She has been labeled the BBC’s youthful blogger as a result of her numerous public appearances and media attention.

As a result of her numerous public appearances and media exposure, she has been dubbed the BBC’s young blogger. Once her identity is known, many wonderful things began to happen as a result of this label. For her advocacy, she began to gain universal praise. In October 2011, she received her first prize nomination, when human rights activist Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children's Peace Prize.

❝ Some people only ask others to do something. I believe that, why should I wait for someone else? Why don’t I take a step and move forward? ❞

On October 9, 2012, Yousafzai's life came to a halt, and she faced the most difficult battle of her life when she was shot in the head by a TTP shooter on her way back home from school.

After surviving the attack, she was flown from Peshawar to Birmingham, England, for recovery.The tragedy sparked outrage, and her case was championed all around world, as well as by Gordon Brown, the UN special envoy for global education, who sponsored a petition urging all children around the world to return to school by 2015.

The ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education bill was the result of the petition, which is a fantastic achievement. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stated in December 2012 that a $10 million education fund would be established in Yousafzai's honor. Meanwhile, the Vital Voices Global Partnership founded the Malala Fund to assist girls' education globally.

Yousafzai was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Prize in 2013, which is given every five years. Also, she was chosen one of Time magazine's most influential people, and she was featured on one of the issue's seven covers.

She received the world’s youngest winner of the Liberty Medal, which is given out by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to prominent figures who work for people's liberties around the world. In 2013, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize but was not selected. Malala’s life changed in 2014 when she made history by receiving the Nobel Prize and being the youngest laureate ever.