OSLO: Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai vowed yesterday to struggle for every child’s right to go to school as she became the youngest ever Nobel laureate, sharing the Peace Prize with Indian campaigner Kailash Satyarthi.
“I will continue this fight until I see every child in school,” the 17-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl told an audience in Oslo City Hall after receiving the award.
Malala became a global icon after she was shot and nearly killed by the Taliban in October 2012 for insisting that girls had a right to an education.
In a speech peppered with self-deprecating humour, she used the award ceremony to call not just for education but also for fairness and peace.
“The so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don’t. Why is it that countries which we call ‘strong’ are so powerful in creating wars but so weak in bringing peace?,” she said.
“Why is it that giving guns is so easy but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult?” Malala, who described herself as the “first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers,” triggered applause and also frequent outbursts of laughter during her speech.
But the underlying message was that a world that may soon be able to send a person to Mars still allows millions to suffer from “the very old problems of hunger, poverty, injustice and conflicts.”
Moments after Malala received the prize, a man carrying a Mexican flag walked towards her, but was caught by security. The motives of the man, who was later identified as a student and asylum seeker from Mexico, were unknown.
Satyarthi, 60, was recognised by the Nobel committee for a 35-year battle to free thousands of children from virtual slave labour.
Satyarthi said his life’s aim was to make sure that every child was a free child. “My only aim in life is to make sure that every child is a free child. I refuse to accept that all the temples, mosques, churches and prayer houses have no place for the dreams of our children,” he said in his acceptance speech.
“In the pursuit of global progress, not a single person should be left out in any corner of the world. Let us work together for the good of the whole world. I represent millions of children who are left behind.” The champion of child rights added that he represented “the sound of silence. The cry of innocence. And, the face of invisibility” at the prestigious prize ceremony.
“I have come here to share the voices and dreams of our children, our children, because they are all our children. You and I live in the age of rapid globalisation. We are connected through high-speed Internet. We exchange goods and services in a single global market. Each day, thousands of flights connect us to every corner of the globe.
“But there is one serious disconnect. It is the lack of compassion. Let us inculcate and transform the individuals’ compassion into a global movement. Let us globalise compassion. Not passive compassion, but transformative compassion that leads to justice, equality, and freedom,” Satyarthi said.
Malala said she was glad she received the Nobel Peace Prize together with Satyarthi because it showed the world that an Indian and a Pakistani could work together for children’s rights. She dedicated her award to the “voiceless” children of the world “who want change”. “This award is not just for me, but for those forgotten children who want education.”
Before the ceremony, Malala and Satyarthi met with 7,000 Norwegian children aged between six and 14 in the heart of Oslo.
“You have given me so much energy,” Malala said. “You might not know but there are so many girls who cannot go to school, there are so many boys who cannot go to school,” she said. “They have never dreamed of any iPad, any PlayStation, any Xbox. The only thing that they dream of is a school, is a book and is a pen.”
Satyarthi’s organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Movement to Save Childhood) prides itself on liberating more than 80,000 children from bonded labour in factories and workshops across India and has networks of activists in more than 100 countries.
Nobel winners receive 8m Swedish kronor ($1.1m), which is shared in the case of joint wins. The Peace Prize is the only Nobel award handed to recipients in Oslo.
Agencies
