ISLAMABAD: Mexico said it will award its 2013 International Prize for Equality and Non-Discrimination to Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban for championing girls’ rights to education.
The award seeks to recognise Malala’s efforts for “the protection of human rights” and especially her fight to protect the right to education without discrimination, Mexico’s official National Council to Prevent Discrimination said.
The award ceremony is planned for early 2014. The 16-year-old, who survived a gunshot wound to the head in 2012, has become a global ambassador for the rights of children. She is currently living in Britain, where she underwent surgery after the attack.
Malala Yousafzai, who since age 11 has written a blog about girls’ right to education, has written an autobiography, addressed the UN and set up a fund to help girls around the world go to school and promote universal access to education. On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus.
Last week, Malala Yousafzai was awarded the European Union’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize at a ceremony significantly held on World Children’s Day. AFP
