Islamabad (TDI): Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai on Saturday reached Pakistan after a gap of over two years to attend the two-day international conference on girls’ education in Islamabad as a special guest.
“I’m truly honoured, overwhelmed and happy to be back in Pakistan,” Malala Yousafzai said as she arrived at the conference in Islamabad on her third visit to the country.
The education activist was shot by the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist group in 2012 when she was a schoolgirl and has returned to the country only a handful of times since.
The two-day summit brings together representatives from Muslim-majority nations, where tens of millions of girls are out of school.
Malala is scheduled to address the summit on Sunday (tomorrow).
“I will speak about protecting rights for all girls to go to school, and why leaders must hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan girls and women,” she posted on social media platform X on Friday.
Since returning to power in 2021, the Afghan Taliban government in Kabul has imposed strict rules that the UN has called “gender apartheid”.
Pakistan is facing its own severe education crisis with over 26 million children out of school, mostly as a result of poverty, according to official government figures — one of the highest figures in the world.
Also Read: Malala Set to Visit Pakistan for Education Summit
Malala became a household name after she was attacked by the TTP terrorists on a school bus in Swat in 2012.
She was evacuated to UK where she became a global advocate for girls’ education and, at 17, the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Also Read: Pakistan Invites Afghanistan to Girls’ Education Conference
The Nobel laureate’s last visit was in 2022 when she arrived in Pakistan along with her parents to visit the flood-hit areas to raise global awareness regarding the devastation caused by climate change in the country.
