Yousafzai, Malala << yoo sahf ZAY, mah LAH lah >> (1997-…), is a Pakistani campaigner for girls’ education. She won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people. Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the peace prize. She shared the prize with the Indian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi . In 2012, at the age of 15, Yousafzai survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban , a militant Islamic group. Following the attack, people around the world voiced support for Yousafzai and her cause.
Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in the town of Mingora, in the Swat district of northwestern Pakistan. Her father, school owner and activist Ziauddin Yousafzai, encouraged her education. In 2009, at the age of 11, Malala began writing a blog (web log) for the Urdu-language website of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) . She soon gained attention in the media.
Yousafzai’s blog promoted her views on education and reported on life in Swat, which had come under Taliban control. The Taliban had banned girls in Swat from attending school and forced many schools to close. In mid-2009, the Pakistani military launched a campaign that drove the Taliban from power in Swat. After that, some schools reopened. However, the Taliban remained active in the region.
Yousafzai was the subject of a 2009 New York Times documentary about her life. Later, she served as chairperson of the District Child Assembly, made up of students from Swat. The assembly meetings addressed the human rights concerns of youths in the district. In 2011, Pakistan’s government awarded Yousafzai its first National Youth Peace Prize for her efforts to promote girls’ education in Swat. The award, later renamed the National Malala Peace Prize, recognizes the contributions of people under the age of 18.
On Oct. 9, 2012, two Taliban gunmen opened fire on Yousafzai as she was returning home from school in a school bus. Yousafzai survived a gunshot wound to the head. Two other schoolgirls also were wounded in the attack. After the attack, Malala and her family moved to the United Kingdom so that she could receive medical treatment there.
Soon after Yousafzai was attacked, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a United Nations (UN) special envoy for global education, launched a UN petition in Yousafzai’s name. The petition demanded that all children worldwide be enrolled in school by the end of 2015.
In 2015, Yousafzai opened a school in Lebanon for Syrian refugee girls. In 2017, she became the youngest person to be named a UN Messenger of Peace. UN Messengers of Peace are chosen from the fields of literature, art, science, entertainment, sports, and other areas of public life. Their role is to help focus global attention on the work and ideals of the United Nations. Yousafzai’s role included a special focus on girls’ education. In 2020, Yousafzai completed a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University.
Yousafzai has written an autobiography, I Am Malala (2013, with Christina Lamb), and an autobiographical picture book, Malala’s Magic Pencil (2017). In 2019, she published We Are Displaced, an account of her own experience of leaving Pakistan as well as the accounts of other women and girls who have fled war-torn countries.
