WATCH: Malala Yousafzai Speaks Emphatically about Girls being Denied an Education in Afghanistan on 9 August
Reading Time: 2 minutesMalala Yousafazai spoke about the right for girls to have an education in Afghanistan when she attended a women’s day event in Tshwane. Watch her speech here.
Image Credit: Malala Fund
Did you know… Afghanistan is currently the only country in the world where girls are prohibited from attending secondary school and women are barred from university?
Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, more than 2.2 million adolescent girls have been denied the chance to continue their education beyond primary school.
On 9 August, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai joined South Africa’s National Women’s Day Official Programme in Tshwane (Pretoria), adding her voice to the global call for the rights of women and girls.
The Afghan women-led campaign is calling for gender apartheid to be formally recognized as a crime against humanity under international law, a step they believe could strengthen efforts to protect women and girls and hold perpetrators accountable.
Who is Malala Yousafazai?
Malala is a Pakistani education activist who campaigns for every girl’s right to go to school. She became internationally known after speaking out against the Taliban’s restrictions on girls’ education in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.
In 2012, when she was 15 years old, Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman while riding a school bus because of her advocacy. She survived after extensive medical treatment in Pakistan and the United Kingdom and continued her activism on a global stage.
Some of her major achievements include:
– Becoming the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize at age 17, sharing the prize in 2014 with Kailash Satyarthi.
– Co-founding the Malala Fund, which works to expand access to education for girls around the world.
– Addressing world leaders, including giving a widely celebrated speech at the United Nations on her 16th birthday, often called “Malala Day.”
– Graduating from University of Oxford in 2020 with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE).
– Malala has also written books, including I Am Malala, which tells the story of her childhood, the attack she survived, and her campaign for girls’ education.
Today, she continues to advocate for education, human rights, and gender equality through public speaking, writing, and the work of the Malala Fund. She is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading voices for ensuring that every child, especially every girl, has access to a safe, quality education.
