Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani female education activist and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the age of 17. She is the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history, the second Pakistani and the only Pashtun to receive a Nobel Prize. Yousafzai is a human rights advocate for the education of women and children in her native homeland, Swat, where the Pakistani Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Her advocacy has grown into an international movement, and according to former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, she has become Pakistan's "most prominent citizen."
Yousafzai in 2019
Malala Yousafzai
Yousafzai with her father (left) and Martin Schulz in Strasbourg, 2013
From left to right: Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali Jinnah have influenced Yousafzai.
Female education is a catch-all term for a complex set of issues and debates surrounding education for girls and women. It is frequently called girls' education or women's education. It includes areas of gender equality and access to education. The education of women and girls is important for the alleviation of poverty. Broader related topics include single-sex education and religious education for women, in which education is divided along gender lines.
Schoolgirls in Guinea
London Mission Bengali Girls' School, Calcutta (LMS, 1869, p.12)
A girls' college in Palakkad, India
Girls' class in Afghanistan, 2002