Malala Yousafzai is a 15 year old
girl from Pakistan from an area called the Swat Valley. On
October 9th 2012, she was shot in the head and neck in an
assassination attempt by a group of men. These men belong to a group called the
Taliban.
The Taliban are a group of men who
ruled Afghanistan for five years until 2001. They imposed very strict rules
especially for women who weren’t allowed to work outside their homes, had to be
covered from head to toe in a veil when they were in public. Girls weren’t
allowed to be educated. People had to respect these strict rules otherwise they
were punished harshly.
In 2001, the Taliban lost control
of Afghanistan and ended up in the Swat Valley, an area near the border of
Pakistan. Since then, in Pakistan, hundreds of schools have been destroyed and
school banned for girls.
Malala’s father is a teacher so she
really wanted to study and therefore had to go to school secretly because of
the Taliban. Unfortunately she had to stop. She wrote a diary and in 2009 she
wrote a blog for the BBC under a pseudonym explaining her life under the
Taliban.
A BBC reporter from Pakistan asked
if any woman from Malala’s father’s school would write about life under the
Taliban. First a girl called Aisha accepted but then her parents stopped her
from doing it because they feared the Taliban too much. The only solution was
Malala (she was only 11). Fortunately around May 2009, the Taliban were driven
out of Swat Valley and life became more normal for Malala but also for everyone
else. Girls were able to go back to school. Afterwards she became a big
supporter of girls’ education and in August 2009 she appeared more often on
television and mentioned her wish to become a politician. In 2011 she was given
a peace award by the Pakistani government, which upset the Taliban. She started
receiving threatening messages and in the summer 2012 the Taliban threatened to
kill her…
Because of the attack on her last
October she was sent to the United Kingdom for treatment. Malala received
support from the public and celebrities like Madonna who dedicated a song to
her.
I think Malala is very
courageous and I hope she will continue to defend women’s rights. One day women
will be given their rights in Pakistan because of people like her.
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