Malala, Satyarthi win Nobel Peace Prize

Seventeen-year-old Pakistani school girl Malala Yousafzai who stood up against the Talibani extremism and for girl child education in Pakistan has been awarded the 2014 Nobel peace prize alongside Hindu child-right activist, Kailash Satyarthi.

On Friday, the Nobel committee in Sweden awarded the duo for their work towards education of children.

“The Nobel committee regards it as an important point for an Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” Thobjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee who announced the results, said.

“It has been calculated that there are 168 million child labourers around the world. In the year 2000, the figure was 78 million higher.

“The world has not gotten to the goal of eliminating child labour; the struggle against oppression and for the right of children and young people contributes to the realisation of the posterity between nations, that Alfred Nobel mentioned as one of the criteria for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

Malala was the Pakistani school girl who spoke against Taliban extremism and was shot on October 9, 2012. But she miraculously survived.

Since then, she has travelled around the world, speaking on girl child education. She was in Nigeria July 2014, meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan, whom she urged to visit Chibok over the girls abducted in April.

She also donated $200,000 to the abducted school girls.

An Indian child activist since the 1990s, Satyarthi and his organisation, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, have freed more than 80,000 children from servitude and helped in their successful re-integration, rehabilitation and education.

The top nominees for this year’s peace prize include Pope Francis, Edward Snowden, Ban ki Moon, Denis Mukwege, Novaya Gazeta.

Malala is the youngest ever to win the Nobel Prize. 25-year-old Lawrence Bragg won in 1915 for Physics, he was the youngest until Malala. The Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said she is the pride of Pakistan.