Pakistani 25-year-old feminist woman, Malala Yousafzai is well-recognized worldwide for promoting women’s access to education. She was born in Pakistan, in the city of Swat Valley, where there are considerable Pashto people, to which Malala relates. Ziauddin Yousafzai and Tor Pekai Yousafzai are Malala’s parents. Her father is well-known for being both a professor and an activist for school reforms and environmental protection.
Malala was raised in a very low-income Muslim home. Malala’s parents favored their daughter’s education, for her to have access to a school as men are entitled, even if in Pakistan that wasn’t something common. Malala studied in a room where only girls were allowed, located in the school where her father administered the Khushal School. She always had a strong commitment to learning and worked very hard to achieve her goal of having the highest grades in her class. She had a huge passion for books and loved to spend her free time reading them. Her initial exposure to the reality of Taliban violence against women was when she heard news due to her proximity to Afghanistan. Taliban is a Sunni organization that in 1994 appeared in Afghanistan.
“Taliban” means student in the pacho idiom. They appeared during the Afghan Civil War. The members of the group adhere to a harsh interpretation of Islamic law known as Sharia. From 1996 until 2001, they harshly ruled Afghanistan. They viewed women as an object and didn’t recognize their right to education. In addition, they made the burqa wear mandatory for women, forbade women from leaving their residences without male company, additionally, women were only allowed to work if it was in a health area.
When this group landed in the Swat Valley, Malala’s life underwent a drastic twist. She was only 10 years old and was already witnessing the horrible situation of her city being invaded by aggressively terrifying huge soldiers. Fundamentalists, who were appreciated by the locals of the city, established a radio station to voice their feelings regarding the invaders. They started off calm, just giving messages about what they desired, but that didn’t last long. Maulana Fazlullah was the Taliban leader in Pakistan, he began to use the radio station to broadcast daily lectures encouraging listeners to follow Islamic ideals, in an effort to win over the audience, Fazlullah also criticized the socioeconomic struggles that the residents of Swat were dealing with in his address, making people’s lives. With that, he started to gain a lot of support from society therefore eventually convincing citizens to practice more and more Islam acts, one of their beings to get rid of their televisions. Future, more severe punishments included the invasion of houses and the theft and destruction of TVs for individuals who didn’t willingly turn themselves in started to happen. All those requirements started to get absurd. Men were not permitted to shave, and women were not allowed to go shopping. Ultimately, what affected everyone the most was when sending their daughters to school turned into a risky and rebellious act.
This all ended Malala’s life, mainly because she was unable to pursue what she loved the most: studying. But also because her father ran a girls’ school and agreed with nothing the Taliban demanded, and refused to follow them, her family was threatened by the Taliban, becoming a facto target to them. Malala was wholly disgusted at not being allowed to go to school and created a vast non-violent movement, for women’s right to attend school. Malala began her involvement in this cause when she was still very young, and when the Taliban politicized her message, she took a stronger stance on it. The Taliban soon started targeting schools to force women to abandon their education; more than 400 of them were entirely demolished.
Malala was asked to write anonymously for the BBC in Urdu on the Taliban situation in 2009 as a result of her tenacity in the fight to ensure that women may study in peace. The young woman gained a lot of attention due to all of this until she was given the National Youth Peace Award in 2011. Her family’s condition got increasingly hazardous and more threats were made as she rose to fame. Malala worried about what may happen for a while and altered her routine a little to secure her safety. She used various routes each day to get to school while remaining concealed to reduce the likelihood of being discovered by terrorists. Because of her persistent refusal to follow their orders, two terrorists were dispatched to assassinate her on October 9, 2012. One of the terrorists shot Malala three times as she was boarding the bus to get home from school, she tried to escape, but one of the bullets struck her in the face, and she was forwarded to emergency surgery in Peshawar. She soon recovered from the outrage with the money from the Pakistan government because the medical care treatment was too expensive, therefore the government decided to bring the young youngster to England so she might receive the finest care possible.
Everything went smoothly. To safeguard the safety of herself and her family, Malala stayed in England. She finished high school and graduated from Oxford University with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. She continued to fight for education and developed strategies for campaigns to support girls’ academic pursuits. The attack elevated Malala to global fame. She has received various honors, the most notable of which was the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Overall, Malala persisted despite all potential difficulties and millions of excuses to give up her struggle for women’s education, she was determined and succeeded in changing women’s education for the better, not even terrorists could silence her voice.
EAC PRESS 