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Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said on Saturday she was “moved and happy” to be back in her country to participate in a summit on girls’ education.
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January 11, 2025 – 07:43
(Keystone-ATS) “I am really honored, moved and happy to be back in Pakistan,” she told AFP in Islamabad, where a two-day summit bringing together representatives from around forty countries is to be held.
Malala Yousafzai, attacked in 2012 by Pakistani Taliban on a school bus in the remote Swat Valley, near the border with Afghanistan, has returned to her country only rarely since her evacuation to the United Kingdom, where she now lives.
She became a global spokesperson for girls’ education, and the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which she was awarded in 2014, at the age of 17.
No response from the Taliban
The girls’ education summit is to be inaugurated on Saturday by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and will bring together ministers and ambassadors from 44 countries, as well as representatives from the United Nations and the World Bank.
The summit will confirm “the commitment of (the) Muslim community to empower girls through education,” according to a government press release.
Tens of millions of girls are out of school in Muslim-majority countries, including Bangladesh and Nigeria.
Islamabad said Afghanistan’s Taliban government had been invited but had not responded.
When contacted by AFP, Afghan officials declined to comment.
Afghanistan, Pakistan’s neighbor, is the only country in the world where girls and women are not allowed to attend secondary school or university.
