ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said she was “overwhelmed” to be back in Pakistan on Saturday, as she arrived for a global summit on girls’ education in the Islamic world.
The education activist was shot by the Taliban in 2012 when she was a schoolgirl, and has returned to the country only a handful of times since.
“I’m truly honoured, overwhelmed and happy to be back in Pakistan,” she told AFP as she arrived at the conference in the capital Islamabad with her parents.
The two-day summit brings together representatives from Muslim-majority countries, where tens of millions of girls are out of school.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was set Saturday morning to address attendees, including local schoolgirls and university students.
“At last we have a good initiative on Muslim girls’ education,” said Zahra Tariq, a 23-year-old studying clinical psychology.
“Those in rural areas are still facing problems. In some cases their families are the first barrier,” she told AFP.
Yousafzai is due to address the summit on Sunday, and said she would focus on Afghanistan – the only country in the world where girls and women are banned from going to school and university.
“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 women & girls,” she posted on social media platform X on Friday.
Pakistan’s education minister, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, told AFP the Taliban government in Afghanistan had been invited to attend, but Islamabad had not received a response.
Pakistan is facing its own severe education crisis with more than 26 million children out of school – one of the highest figures in the world – mostly as a result of poverty, according to official government figures.
Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to visit Pakistan for girls’ summit
Yousafzai became a household name after she was attacked by Taliban on a school bus in the remote Swat valley in 2012.
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