Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said this Saturday, January 11, that she was “moved and happy” to be back in her country to participate in a summit on girls’ education.
“I feel really honoured, moved and happy to be back in Pakistan,” she told Agence France-presse (AFP) in Islamabad, where a two-day summit was held bringing together representatives from some forty countries.
Malala Yousafzai, attacked in 2012 by Pakistani Taliban on a school bus in the remote Swat Valley near the border with Afghanistan, has rarely returned to her country since her evacuation to the United Kingdom, where she now lives.
She became a global spokesperson for girls’ education and the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which she received in 2014, at the age of 17.
Representatives from 44 countries are expected.
The summit on girls’ education will be inaugurated this Saturday by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and will bring together ministers and ambassadors from 44 countries, as well as representatives of the United Nations and the World Bank.
The summit will confirm “(the) Muslim community’s commitment to empowering girls through education,” according to a government news release.
Tens of millions of girls are out of school in Muslim-majority countries, including Bangladesh and Nigeria.
Islamabad said Afghanistan’s Taliban government had been invited but had not responded. Contacted by AFP, Afghan officials declined to comment.
Afghanistan, Pakistan’s neighbor, is the only country in the world where girls and women are not allowed to attend high school or university.
Source: BFM TV
