Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi Win Nobel Peace Prize
Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for risking their lives to fight for children's rights. The decision made Malala, a 17-year-old student and education activist, the youngest-ever Nobel winner.
The news set off celebrations on the streets of Mingora, the main town in Pakistan's volatile Swat Valley, with residents greeting each other and distributing sweets. At the town's Khushal Public School, which is owned by Malala's father, students danced in celebration Friday, jumping up and down.
When she was a student there, Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman two years ago for insisting that girls as well as boys have the right to an education. Surviving several operations with the help of British medical care, she continued both her activism and her studies.
Appropriately, Malala was at school Friday in the central English city of Birmingham at the time of the Nobel announcement and was expected to make a statement later in the day.
Satyarthi, 60, has been at the forefront of a global movement to end child slavery and exploitative child labor since 1980, when he gave up his career as an electrical engineer. The grassroots activist has led the rescue of tens of thousands of child slaves and developed a successful model for their education and rehabilitation. He has also survived several attempts on his life.
"Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work still remains but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime," Satyarthi told The Associated Press at his office in New Delhi. "If any child is a child slave in any part of the world, it is a blot on humanity. It is a disgrace."
Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousufzai, said the decision will further the rights of girls.
"(The Nobel will) boost the courage of Malala and enhance her capability to work for the cause of girls' education," he told the AP.
Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said the decision "has given pride to the whole of Pakistan."
The Nobel committee's announcement reflected a delicate diplomatic balance, naming one activist from Pakistan and another from India, two countries that are long-time bitter rivals; one Muslim and one Hindu; both sexes; an elder statesman of child's rights and a youthful advocate who had herself been a victim.
Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said it was important to reward both an Indian Hindu and a Pakistani Muslim for joining "in a common struggle for education and against extremism." The two will split the Nobel award of $1.1 million.
By highlighting children's rights, the committee widened the scope of the peace prize, which in its early days was given for efforts to end or prevent armed conflicts.
"It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected," the committee said. "In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation."
Many around the world praised the Nobel committee for focusing on children.
"The true winners today are the world's children," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, praising Satyarthi's "heroic work" and Malala's "courage and determination."
"The biggest threat to the Taliban is a girl with a book," said Margot Wallstrom, Sweden's foreign minister and a former U.N. envoy on Sexual Violence in Conflict.
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