There was no large welcoming committee when Malala Yousafzai, 25, landed in Karachi mid-week. But a big echo. After all, the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner is taking a risk with her visit to Pakistan. She traveled to her old homeland to draw attention to the poor state in which large parts of her country are in the wake of record monsoons. “It breaks my heart to see the devastation in Pakistan and the lives of millions of people shattered overnight,” Yousafzai said after her arrival.
The world is so preoccupied with other issues right now that media attention is rapidly dwindling. And as a UN Messenger of Peace, one of Yousafzai’s jobs is to shine the spotlight on regions where people are in need. But now she also traveled symbolically on her own behalf. When she was just 15, the activist was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban for campaigning for girls’ right to education. She was driving home on a bus with other girls after a school exam when the men opened fire on the group. Yousafzai survived the attack, underwent surgery at a hospital in Birmingham and has lived in the UK ever since. In December 2014, at the age of 17, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Her goal: twelve years of training for all girls
Last month, Yousafzai met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York to discuss the problems faced by millions of Pakistani children as a result of the devastating floods.
Her trip to Pakistan this week was only the second since the assassination. And it fell almost exactly on the tenth anniversary. In addition, the “International Day of the Girl” was celebrated on October 11, commemorating the rights of girls. These rights are not only embodied by Malala Yousafzai herself, but also by the “Malala Fund” that she and her father founded in 2013 – a non-profit organization that works to enable girls to have a safe, twelve-year education that is both free and good is. The fund is also active in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Brazil, India, Lebanon, Nigeria and Turkey. Angelina Jolie, another world-renowned UN activist who has just visited Pakistan, is among his supporters.
However, Malala Yousafzai, who was accompanied by her husband and parents, also arrived at a time when students at her former school were on strike over increasing violence in her hometown of Mingora in the Swat Valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Pakistani Taliban had terrorized the valley for years until a massive military action in 2014 secured it. But since the Taliban have regained power in Afghanistan, their Pakistani brothers-in-arms have been pushing back into the region in order to finance themselves there through blackmail, kidnapping and protection money and to exercise violence. A school bus driver was shot dead last week.
The Malala Fund has already awarded the International Rescue Committee (IRC) an emergency grant to “protect the welfare of girls and young women in Pakistan”. It also said in a statement that the IRC will provide emergency education assistance to girls who have been displaced or whose school building has been destroyed or closed. Shortly after her arrival, Malala Yousafzai attended a primary school in Karachi, which is also a sign. She then proceeded to the devastated district of Dadu in the southern province of Sindh. There she wants to get an idea of the devastation. Understandably, where exactly she is currently staying has not been announced.