- Title: NOBEL-PRIZE/PEACE MALALA Nobel prize is an "honour" - Yousafzai
- Date: 10th October 2014
- Summary: BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (OCTOBER 10, 2014)(REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER, MALALA YOUSAFZAI, APPROACHING PODIUM (SOUNDBITE)(English) NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER, MALALA YOUSAFZAI, SAYING: "I'm feeling honoured that I am being chosen as a Nobel laureate and I have been honoured with this precious award, the Nobel Peace
- Embargoed: 25th October 2014 13:00
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- Location: United Kingdom
- Country: United Kingdom
- Topics: General
- Reuters ID: LVAOXC9QUG0YH18E9T5I2OICZG8
- Story Text: Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating girls' right to education, said it was a great honour to have won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday (October 10).
"I'm feeling honoured that I am being chosen as a Nobel laureate and I have been honoured with this precious award, the Nobel Peace Prize. And I am proud that I am the first Pakistani and the first young woman, or the first young person, who is getting this award. It's a great honour for me," said Yousafzai, who at 17 becomes the youngest Nobel Prize winner by far.
Yousafzai has been hailed around the world as a champion of women's rights who stood up bravely against the Taliban to defend her beliefs.
She became globally known in 2012 when Taliban gunmen almost killed her for her passionate advocacy of women's right to education.
On Friday she paid tribute to her father for his role in her achievements.
"As my father always says, he did not give me something extra. What he did was that he did not clip my wings. So I'm thankful to my father for not clipping my wings, for letting me to fly and achieve my goals, for showing to the world that a girl is not supposed to be the slave. A girl has the power to go forward in her life. She is not only a mother, she is not only a sister, she is not only a wife. But a girl has...she should have an identity, she should be recognised and she has equal rights as a boy," she said.
Yousafzai was attacked in 2012 on a school bus in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan by masked gunmen as a punishment for a blog that she started writing for the BBC's Urdu service as an 11-year-old to campaign against the Taliban's efforts to deny women an education.
Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, Yousafzai moved to Britain, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.
She said it was her own experience that made her so determined to support other children who were being deprived of an education.
"I have myself suffered through the same situation when I was in Swat valley and you all may know that in Swat, there was Talibanisation. And because of that, no girl was allowed to go to school. At that time, I stood up for my rights and I said that I will speak up. I did not wait for someone else, I did not wait for someone else. I had really two options: one was not to speak and wait to be killed and the second was to speak up and then be killed. And I chose the second one," she said in her first comments since winning the Nobel Prize.
She said she saw herself as someone who was able to speak out on behalf of all suffering children.
"I believe that the Nobel committee, they haven't given it just to me. But this award is for all those children who are voiceless, whose voices need to be heard. And I speak for them and I stand up with them and I join them in their campaign that their voices should be heard," she said.
Along with Yousafzai, Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi also won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.
The awards were made at a time when hostilities have broken out between India and Pakistan along the border of the disputed, mainly Muslim region of Kashmir - the worst fighting between the nuclear-armed rivals in more than a decade.
Yousafzai said she had just spoken to Satyarthi by telephone and the pair had agreed to work together towards improving relations between the two countries.
"It's important that both the countries focus more on education, focus more on development and progress, which is good for both of them. So we both decided that...I requested him that would it be possible that he request that his honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi to join us when we receive the Nobel Peace Prize in December and I promised him that I would also request the honourable Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, to join us when I get and he gets the Nobel Peace Prize," she said.
Yousafzai has also won the European Union's human rights award and was one of the favourites to win the Nobel Prize last year.
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