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Taliban shooting victim Malala Yousafzai and Indian child rights activist share Nobel Taliban shooting victim Malala Yousafzai and Indian child rights activist share Nobel
(35 minutes later)
The 2014 Nobel Peace Prize went to advocates for children’s rights with Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi of India sharing the award on Friday. LONDON – A 17-year-old Pakistani girl who survived a Taliban gunshot to the head for her advocacy of female education became Friday the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, winning alongside an Indian advocate for ending child labor.
Yousafzai, a schoolgirl in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, became a worldwide symbol against abuses by the Taliban after she was shot in the head in 2012 by militants who stormed the bus she was riding with other students. Malala Yousafzai, who has become a global spokeswoman for the rights of children after her long recovery, was awarded the prize just a day after the second anniversary of the attack on her in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.
Yousafzai, now 17, later become an advocate for girls’ education and has appeared in some of the most high-profile forums, including an address at the United Nations last year. Co-winner, 60-year-old Kailash Satyarthi, has been a longtime crusader against child slavery, and is credited with saving tens of thousands of lives.
“They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed,” she said at the United Nations. “And then, out of that silence, came thousands of voices.” The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Yousafzai and Satyarthi “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”
Her appeals, however, have angered Taliban militants and others in her native country who have opposed education for girls. She has been forced her to live in exile since her recovery. By awarding the prize to two advocates for children -- one Indian, the other Pakistani – the committee hoped to send a powerful message not only about children’s rights, but also about its hopes for peace on the South Asian subcontinent. In recent days, the two nations have exchanged fire over a disputed border region in some of the most serious clashes in years.
Satyarthi, 60, has fought against child labor for nearly two decades and is credited with helping free tens of thousands of children from harsh work conditions and other forms of forced labor, including in the carpet industry and traveling circuses popular in India. "What we are saying is that we have awarded two people with the same cause, coming from India and Pakistan, a Muslim and a Hindu. It is in itself a strong signal,” Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told reporters following the announcement.
The Nobel committee in Oslo, Norway, said Satyarthi has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, “focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain.” Of the two winners, Yousafzai is far better known globally.
There have been attempts on Satyarthi’s life, and his home was ransacked and his office in New Delhi was set on fire in 1994. Yousafzai, the first Nobel winner to have been born in an independent Pakistan, became a worldwide symbol of Taliban abuses after she critically injured in a 2012 attack by militants who stormed the bus she was riding with other students. Rather than shrink from further Taliban threats, she instead expanded her advocacy work, writing a best-selling book, and giving addresses at major international gatherings, including at the United Nations.
In 1998, Satyarthi’s movement organized a march across several continents, ending in Geneva. “They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed,” Yousafzai said in her U.N. speech. “And then, out of that silence, came thousands of voices.”
“Instead of believing what people told me and going away quietly,” he said at the time. “I have challenged them.” Her appeals, however, have angered Taliban militants and others in her native country who have opposed education for girls. She has been forced to live in exile in Britain since her recovery.
Satyarthi is less of a global figure, but has long been celebrated in India. In making the announcement, Jagland credited Satyarthi with “maintaining Gandhi’s tradition” by leading “various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain.”
Jagland said there are 168 million child laborers in the world today, but noted that figure is down 78 million from 2000.
Satyarthi has fought against child labor more nearly two decades and is credited with helping free tens of thousands of children from harsh work conditions and other forms of forced labor, including in the carpet industry and traveling circuses popular in India.
That work has prompted a backlash. There have been attempts on Satyarthi’s life, and his home was ransacked and his office in New Delhi set on fire in 1994.
"Even as a child, I was passionate about issues related to child labor,” Satyarthi said in an interview with the Times of India this summer. “On my first day of school, I saw a child of my age sitting on the doorsteps of my school along with his father. They were cobblers. It was the first time that I saw a contrast in the lives of two kids. I asked my teacher, we are sitting in the classroom and that boy is sitting outside, working. Why is that?"
The selection of Yousafzai and Satyarthi comes during a tumultuous year that has seen new conflicts emerge and old ones expand.
A proxy war in eastern Ukraine between Russia and the West has left more than 3,500 people dead and a country dismembered, all while raising fears of a new Cold War.
In Iraq and Syria, Islamic State has carved out a swath of territory larger than Britain and has used it to carry out atrocities against ethnic and religious minorities, while executing American journalists and British aid workers.
The death toll in the Syrian war has more than doubled in the past year, with President Bashar al-Assad’s forces continuing to battle rebels in a conflict that has taken an extraordinary toll on civilians.
A war between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza – the third in six years -- claimed more than 2,000 lives.
Meanwhile, the ebola outbreak – enabled by poverty and a lack of quality health care in West Africa – continues to spread, reaching new countries daily.
The selection of two individuals for the 2014 prize follows two years in which the Nobel committee has picked an organization. Last year, the peace prize was awarded to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons amid that group’s efforts to disarm Syria of its stockpile amid a civil war.
In 2012, the prize went to the European Union for helping to “transform most of Europe from a continent of war to a continent of peace.” President Obama won the award in 2009, less than a year into his presidency.
The prize, which comes with a medal and a $1.24 million check, has been awarded annually since 1901. Unlike the Nobel prizes for physics, chemistry, literature, economics and medicine, which are awarded by specialist committees in Sweden, the peace prize recipient is selected by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament.
The prize is formally awarded during a ceremony in Oslo City Hall on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, who left a fortune in his will to annually honor whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Murphy reported from Washington. Karla Adam contributed to this report.