Malala Yousafzai Receives Women’s Human Rights Award

Malala Yousafzai has been declared the winner of an award for female defenders of human rights in war and conflict. The 16-year-old from Pakistan was due to accept the 2013 RAW in WAR (Reach All Women in WAR) Anna Politkovskaya Award at a London-based ceremony on Oct. 4.

The award is named after Politkovskaya, a Russian human rights journalist and outspoken government critic, who was murdered in October 2006 – and whose assassin has still not been brought to justice. Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in April 2013, Malala began blogging for the BBC in 2009 about her life in Pakistan’s Swat Valley region and her desire to attend school freely and safely, reported the BBC. Her increasingly public profile led to her being shot in the head by a Taliban gunman on her way home from school in October last year. She was then flown to the U.K. for treatment and currently lives in Birmingham, where she continues to campaign for education for girls and boys.

The award was due to be presented by 104-year-old Sir Nicholas Winton, nicknamed the “British Schindler”, who in 1939 organized the rescue of 669 Jewish children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.




(2013-10-05/time)