Keystone-SDA
Evacuated from her country in 2012 after suffering an attack by the Taliban, Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai rarely returns to her country but participated this weekend in a summit on girls’ education, at the center of her fight.
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January 12, 2025 – 1:29 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) His arrival comes at a time when education is particularly fragile in the region: in Pakistan, 26 million children are out of school, according to official figures which place the country among the hardest hit by the phenomenon.
Afghanistan, a neighboring country, is the only one in the world where girls and women do not have the right to go to secondary school or university, among other repressive measures imposed by the Taliban since their return. in power in 2021.
“The Taliban do not consider women as human beings,” denounced the activist on Sunday, guest of honor at the summit on the education of girls in Muslim communities, organized for two days in Islamabad.
Malala Yousafzai, who in 2014 became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded at the age of 17, was attacked in 2012 by the Pakistani Taliban, angered by publications in favor of education published on her blog .
As she was riding a bus home from school in the remote Swat Valley near the border with Afghanistan, they shot her in the head. Evacuated and then hospitalized in the United Kingdom where she now lives, she has only returned to her native country a few times, always escorted.
“His presence in Pakistan at this very moment is a message to those in power: the fight for education cannot be silenced, whether in the Swat Valley or across the border in Afghanistan “, says Nighat Dad, a fellow activist.
Poverty
His trip to Pakistan is “also a reminder of the work that remains to be accomplished,” adds Mr. Dad.
In the speech delivered to dozens of representatives of Muslim countries, Malala Yousafzai stressed that there remained “an enormous amount of work to be done to ensure that every Pakistani woman has access to education.”
Poverty is the main reason for massive dropouts in Pakistan where, according to the World Bank, 40% of the 240 million inhabitants live below the poverty line.
The phenomenon is aggravated by unsuitable infrastructure, conservatism but also the impacts of climate change: it is not uncommon for poorly equipped schools to close due to pollution, heat waves or floods.
“It’s discouraging to see that the situation is largely the same as when she left,” notes Hadia Sajid, a 22-year-old student who followed the activist’s conference.
“But there has been some marginal progress, largely due to the impact of social media: it has become more difficult to deprive girls of their rights,” she says.
“Icon”
Malala Yousafzai created the Malala Fund in 2013 with her father, a former teacher who fought against societal norms to push his daughter into class in the Swat Valley.
Their organization has invested millions of dollars to get 120 million girls out of school around the world.
In their native country, however, the projects they support in rural areas are rarely known.
“In Pakistan, Malala is a paradox,” says Nighat Dad. “Its successes on an international scale are undeniable but those in charge and society remain divided, caught between admiration and distrust.”
For Sanam Maher, author of several works on Pakistani women, she is a “controversial figure”: “many criticize her because of her absence from Pakistan”.
For Hadia Sajid, as for many young Pakistani women, however, she remains an “icon and a powerful voice in favor of girls’ education”.
“She was confronted with violence, hatred and criticism for the simple fact of defending” this cause, laments the student.
