Malala Yousafzai is greeted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (second left), General Assembly President, Vuk Jeremic (right), and UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown (left, back from camera) at UN headquarters in New York during the UN Youth Assembly. The UN has declared July 12 Malala Day, which is also her birthday, and will host the UN Youth Assembly.
UNITED NATIONS: Malala Yousafzai took over the UN yesterday, nine months after a Taliban gunman put a bullet in her head believing he was ending the Pakistani teenager’s campaign for education for girls.
She also marked her 16th birthday with her first public speech since she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman as she rode on a school bus near her home in Pakistan’s Swat Valley on October 12 last year after campaigning against the Taliban efforts to deny women education.
She told the UN Youth Assembly that she would not be silenced by terrorist threats.
“They thought that the bullet would silence us, but they failed,” Malala said.
“The terrorists thought that they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in life, except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, courage and fervour was born,” she said in a speech given standing ovations.
The attack has given a new life to her campaign for greater educational opportunities for girls.
She appealed for compulsory free schooling for all children. Wearing a pink headscarf, Malala told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and nearly 1,000 students from around the world that education was the only way to improve lives.
“Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution,” she said.
She presented Ban with a petition signed by nearly four million people in support of 57 million children who are not able to go to school, demanding that world leaders fund new teachers, schools and books and end child labour, marriage and trafficking.
Pakistan has five million children out of school, a number only surpassed by Nigeria, with more than 10 million children out of school, according to Unesco. Most of them are girls.
The Taliban made it clear that the aim of the shooting was to let the world know that girls have no right to equality at school.
Schools were also a regular target in Pakistan when Malala started a diary at 11, written under the pseudonym of Gul Makai, the name of a Pashtun heroine, that was published on BBC Urdu.
She built up a worldwide following of supporters as she told of the anxiety she and friends felt as they saw students dropping out for fear of being targeted by militants. Girls also refused to wear uniforms to school in case militants saw them.
Malala and her family briefly left Swat during a government offensive on the Taliban-controlled territory. On their return, they were the subject of threats by militants before the attack.
The family now live in Birmingham, the UK, where Malala has undergone surgery and rehabilitation.
Doctors had to place a titanium plate over the hole in her skull and her hearing has been badly affected. But Malala has become a favourite to become the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.
She has been named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2013 and has reportedly secured a $3m contract for a book on her life.
The Taliban said it shot Malala because of her efforts to promote “secular education” and have made it clear she remains a target.
But now, more girls are attending schools in the valley.
In the first six months of 2013, 102,374 girls registered at primary schools in Swat compared with 96,540 during last year, said Dilshad Bibi, Swat District Education Officer.
In Malala’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, only 36 percent of women and 72 percent of men are literate, according to the government.
Muhammad Atif, the provincial Education Minister, says militants had destroyed 750 schools since 2008, of which 611 had been reconstructed.
The new government, led by the party of former cricketer Imran Khan, has increased its annual education budget by 27 percent and declared female education its priority.
“Our government has allocated 66bn rupees ($660m), the highest amount in the provincial budget for education, and female education is our top priority,” said Atif.
“This frail young girl who was seriously injured has become such a powerful symbol not just for the girls’ right to education, but for the demand that we do something about it immediately,” said former British premier and UN envoy on education, Gordon Brown, who organised World Malala Day.
“There will be no compromise with any religious extremist who says girls should not go to school or stop going to school at 10,” Brown told CBS News.
Brown hailed Malala as “the bravest girl in the world” as he presented her at the assembly.
He said yesterday’s event was not just a celebration of Malala’s birthday and her recovery, but of her vision. “Her dream that nothing, no political indifference, no government inaction, no intimidation, no threats, no assassin’s bullets should ever deny the right of every single child... to be able to go to school.”
According to Ban’s annual report on children and conflict, 115 schools were attacked last year in Mali, 321 in the occupied Palestinian territory, 167 in Afghanistan and 165 in Yemen.
Agencies
