Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai will attend a summit on girls’ education organized in Islamabad to promote girls’ education and raise awareness on women’s empowerment.
Girls’ education advocate Malala and her friends Kainat and Shazia were attacked by the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) on October 9, 2012, while returning from school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat Valley.
She was seriously injured in the attack after being shot by the TTP, who were enraged by her activism. Malala was evacuated from the country after receiving initial treatment. Since then, the Nobel laureate has returned to the country only a handful of times.
“I am excited to join Muslim leaders from around the world for a critical conference on girls’ education,” Malala said today in a post on X.
“On Sunday I will speak about protecting the right of all girls to go to school and why leaders must hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan women and girls.”
A spokesperson for her charity Malala Fund confirmed that she will be attending the summit in person, which is scheduled for January 11-12 and will focus on girls’ education in Muslim communities.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls and women are prohibited from going to school and university. Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban government has imposed an austere version of Islamic law that the United Nations has called “gender apartheid.”
Girls are only allowed to attend primary school, while women are largely limited to working in segregated settings in the health or education sectors. The Taliban administration claims that Islamic law “guarantees” the rights of Afghan men and women.
The summit will be inaugurated by 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 shared commitment of (the) Muslim community to empower girls through education,” according to a government statement.
Federal Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said on Thursday that the two-day international conference would address challenges to women’s access to education across the Muslim world.
In 2018, Malala visited her hometown in Swat, more than five years after the attack. The same year, he visited again, traveling to areas devastated by unprecedented monsoon floods and meeting flood victims.
