Malala Yousafzai Will Speak at the UN in New York on Her 16th Birthday

The teenage Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban is scheduled to speak at the United Nations headquarters in New York on July 12. Malala Yousafzai has been invited to speak in public, her first, on July 12 with 4,000 people expected to attend, a huge number of which are youngsters. This is just one of the many honors granted the young girl who survived a Taliban assassination.

This news was released by the office of Gordon Brown, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom. Brown is currently the United Nations Global Education envoy.

A global symbol

Malala Yousafzai is now recognized by the international community as a champion for the rights of girls the world over to be educated. She is the 2013 Simone de Beauvoir Prize for Women’s Freedom awardee. This determined and resilient school girl has been very recently included in Time Magazine’s list of 100 most influential people in the world. She even appeared on the cover of the magazine, one of the seven chosen for the issues dedicated to the list.

This young Pakistani girl has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize of 2013.She is said to be a major contender for the Nobel and should she win, she would be the second citizen of Pakistan to receive the recognition after laureate Abdus Salam (Nobel Prize for Physics for 1979).

Fighting for the right to education

Brown calls 15-year old Yousafzai a “shining beacon” and an inspiration for young girls the world over. Brown added that he admires the girl’s courage. He also commends her on her determination to go on with her fight. Brown sees the Pakistani teenager as a future leader of her generation to both girls and boys alike.

Pakistan’s educational system is dismal, to say the least. It allocates 2.3% of its GNP annually to education. The United Nations say that 5.1 million Pakistani children to not have access to education and 2/3 of this number are female. Pakistan is the second country in the world where citizens have limited access to education.

A very young target

Yousafzai was targeted by the Taliban and shot point-blank for her work in promoting education for females in her country. She was riding her school bus when a gunman from the notorious terrorist group shot her up close. The incident occurred on October 9, 2012 at the Swat Valley of Pakistan. Two students, Malala’s classmates, were also injured in the incident.

Malala has been an outspoken champion for girls’ rights to education in her hometown of Mingora in the Swat Valley of Pakistan since it came under Taliban rule. She spoke on national television despite the danger of exposing herself. The Taliban targeted her in order to silence her. But they only succeeded in making her into a global symbol.

The road to recovery

Malala, as friends and supports fondly call her was taken to the United Kingdom where she underwent major surgery in February of this year for her head injuries. She started schooling again shortly upon recovery. She is now going to school in England in Birmingham. She is currently living in the United Kingdom as an exile.

Malala’s life story, an autobiography called “I Am Malala,” is expected to be out much later in the year. The book deal is reported to amount to $3 million