Malala Yousafzai Biography 2024: Age, Net Worth, Family, Relationship, Height, Education Background, Personal Life, Activism Career and Awards

Malala Yousafzai, born on 12 July 1997, is a Pakistani female education activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at the age of 17.

She holds the title of being the world’s youngest Nobel Prize laureate, the second Pakistani, and the first Pashtun to receive such an honor.

Yousafzai is a strong advocate for human rights, particularly focusing on the education of women and children in her hometown of Swat, where girls were once prohibited from attending school by the Pakistani Taliban.

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Her efforts have sparked an international movement, leading former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to refer to her as Pakistan’s most prominent citizen.

Born into a Yusufzai Pashtun family in Swat, the daughter of education activist Ziauddin Yousafzai was named after the renowned Afghan folk heroine Malalai of Maiwand.

She looked up to Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Barack Obama, and Benazir Bhutto as her role models, drawing inspiration from her father’s thoughts and humanitarian work as well.

At the tender age of 11, in early 2009, she penned a blog under the pseudonym Gul Makai for BBC Urdu, vividly describing her life during the Taliban’s occupation of Swat.

The subsequent summer, journalist Adam B. Ellick produced a documentary for The New York Times, shedding light on her life amidst the Pakistan Armed Forces’ Operation Rah-e-Rast against the militants in Swat.

In recognition of her efforts, she was honored with Pakistan’s inaugural National Youth Peace Prize in 2011.

As she gained prominence, she participated in interviews for print and television, and her advocacy for peace led to her nomination for the International Children’s Peace Prize by activist Desmond Tutu.

On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai, along with two other girls, was shot by a Taliban gunman while traveling on a bus in Swat District after completing an exam.

The purpose of the assassination attempt was to target her for her activism. The gunman managed to escape from the scene.

Yousafzai sustained a head injury from the bullet and remained unconscious and in critical condition at the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology.

However, her condition gradually improved, allowing her to be transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK.

This incident triggered a global wave of support for her. In January 2013, Deutsche Welle reported that she might have become the most renowned teenager worldwide.

Shortly after the failed murder, a fatwā was issued by a group of 50 prominent Muslim clerics in Pakistan against those responsible for the attack.

Governments, human rights organizations, and feminist groups strongly condemned the Pakistani Taliban in response.

In retaliation, the Taliban further expressed their disapproval of Yousafzai, even hinting at a potential second assassination attempt, which they believed was justified by religious obligations. This led to another wave of international outrage.

Following her recovery, Yousafzai emerged as a prominent advocate for the right to education.

She co-founded the Malala Fund, a non-profit organization, alongside Shiza Shahid, while being based in Birmingham.

In 2013, she achieved international recognition as the co-author of the bestselling book “I Am Malala.”

Additionally, she was honored with the Sakharov Prize in 2013 and shared the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize with Kailash Satyarthi of India.

Notably, at the age of 17, she became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Prize. Yousafzai’s influence continued to grow as she was featured in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary “He Named Me Malala” in 2015 and was recognized as one of the most influential individuals globally by Time magazine in 2013, 2014, and 2015.

In 2017, she was granted honorary Canadian citizenship and became the youngest person to address the House of Commons of Canada.

Yousafzai completed her secondary education at Edgbaston High School in Birmingham from 2013 to 2017.

Subsequently, she pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, graduating in 2020.

Remarkably, she returned to Oxford in 2023 to become the youngest-ever Honorary Fellow at Linacre College.

Early Life

Malala Yousafzai was born on 12 July 1997 in the Swat District of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, into a lower-middle-class family.

She is the daughter of Ziauddin Yousafzai and Toor Pekai Yousafzai. Her family is Sunni Muslim of Pashtun ethnicity, belonging to the Yusufzai tribe.

Due to financial constraints, Yousafzai was born at home with the assistance of neighbors. She was named Malala, which means “grief-stricken,” after Malalai of Maiwand, a renowned Pashtun poet and warrior woman from southern Afghanistan.

Living in Mingora with her parents, two younger brothers, Khushal and Atal, and two chickens, Yousafzai was fluent in Pashto, Urdu, and English.

She received most of her education from her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who is a poet, school owner, and educational activist running the Khushal Public School chain.

Initially aspiring to become a doctor, Yousafzai’s father later encouraged her to pursue a career in politics.

Ziauddin recognized his daughter’s unique qualities, allowing her to engage in political discussions late into the night after her brothers had gone to bed.

Yousafzai initiated her advocacy for education rights in September 2008, influenced by the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was elected twice before being assassinated.

During a speech at the local press club in Peshawar, she boldly questioned the Taliban’s infringement on her fundamental right to education.

Her powerful words resonated across the region, garnering attention from newspapers and television channels.

Subsequently, in 2009, she joined the Institute for War and Peace Reporting’s Open Minds Pakistan youth programme as a trainee, eventually becoming a peer educator.

This program aimed to facilitate constructive discussions on social issues among students in the region’s schools through journalism, public debate, and dialogue.

As a BBC Blogger

In the latter part of 2008, Aamer Ahmed Khan from the BBC Urdu website, along with his colleagues, devised an innovative approach to report on the escalating influence of the Pakistani Taliban in Swat.

They opted to have a schoolgirl anonymously blog about her life in the region.

Despite efforts by their correspondent in Peshawar, Abdul Hai Kakar, to connect with a local school teacher, Ziauddin Yousafzai, no students were willing to report due to safety concerns raised by their families.

Eventually, Yousafzai recommended his own daughter, 11-year-old Malala. During that period, the Pakistani Taliban, under the leadership of Maulana Fazlullah, were seizing control of the Swat Valley, imposing restrictions such as banning television, music, girls’ education, and women’s shopping activities.

Gruesome displays of beheaded policemen were becoming a common sight in town squares.

Initially, a girl named Aisha from her father’s school had agreed to document her experiences in a diary, but her parents intervened out of fear of Taliban retaliation.

Consequently, Yousafzai, who was four years younger and in seventh grade at the time, became the sole option. “While we had extensively covered the violence and political landscape in Swat, we lacked insight into the daily lives of ordinary people under the Taliban regime,” remarked Mirza Waheed, the former editor of BBC Urdu.

Due to concerns for Yousafzai’s safety, the BBC editors mandated that she adopt a pseudonym.

Her blog entries were attributed to “Gul Makai” (meaning “cornflower” in Pashto), a name inspired by a character from a Pashtun folktale.

On 3 January 2009, her first entry was posted to the BBC Urdu blog. She hand-wrote notes and passed them to a reporter who scanned and e-mailed them.

The blog recorded Yousafzai’s thoughts during the First Battle of Swat, as military operations took place, fewer girls show up to school, and finally, her school shut down. That day she wrote:

I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taliban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taliban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools. Only 11 out of 27 pupils attended the class because the number decreased because of the Pakistani Taliban’s edict. My three friends have shifted to Peshawar, Lahore and Rawalpindi with their families after this edict.

In Swat, the Pakistani Taliban had set an edict that no girls could attend school after 15 January 2009. They had already blown up more than 100 girls’ schools.

The night before the ban took effect was filled with the noise of artillery fire, waking Yousafzai several times. The following day, she also read for the first time excerpts from her blog that were published in a local newspaper.

Banned from school

Following the edict, the Pakistani Taliban destroyed several more local schools. On 24 January 2009, Yousafzai wrote: “Our annual exams are due after the vacations but this will only be possible if the Pakistani Taliban allow girls to go to school. We were told to prepare certain chapters for the exam but I do not feel like studying.”

In February 2009, girls’ schools were still closed. In solidarity, private schools for boys had decided not to open until 9 February, and notices appeared saying so.

On 7 February, Yousafzai and her brother returned to their hometown of Mingora, where the streets were deserted, and there was an “eerie silence”. She wrote in her blog: “We went to the supermarket to buy a gift for our mother but it was closed, whereas earlier it used to remain open till late. Many other shops were also closed.” Their home had been robbed and their television was stolen.

After boys’ schools reopened, the Pakistani Taliban lifted restrictions on girls’ primary education, where there was co-education. Girls-only schools were still closed. Yousafzai wrote that only 70 pupils attended out of the 700 who were enrolled.

Girls’ schools resume classes
In her blog post on 25 February, Yousafzai mentioned that she and her classmates had a lot of fun in class and enjoyed themselves just like they used to.

By 1 March, the attendance in Yousafzai’s class had increased to 19 out of 27 students, despite the ongoing presence of the Pakistani Taliban in the area. The shelling continued, and relief supplies intended for displaced people were being stolen.

Just two days later, Yousafzai wrote about a clash between the military and the Taliban, with the sound of mortar shells echoing in the background. People were once again fearful that the peace might not last long, as some believed that the peace agreement was only a temporary break from the fighting.

On 9 March, Yousafzai shared her success in a science paper and mentioned that the Taliban were no longer conducting vehicle searches like they used to. Her blog came to an end on 12 March 2009.

After the documentary aired, Yousafzai participated in interviews with various media outlets.

She was interviewed on AVT Khyber, a national Pashto-language station, as well as the Urdu-language Daily Aaj and Canada’s Toronto Star.

She also made an appearance on Capital Talk on 19 August 2009. By December 2009, her BBC blogging identity was exposed in articles.

Yousafzai began advocating for female education on television and served as the chair of the District Child Assembly of the Khpal Kor Foundation from 2009 to 2010.

In 2011, Yousafzai underwent training with Aware Girls, a local girls’ empowerment organization.

The training, led by Gulalai Ismail, focused on women’s rights and empowerment, with an emphasis on peacefully opposing radicalization through education.

In October 2011, Yousafzai was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a prominent South African activist.

The nomination was made by the Dutch international children’s advocacy group, KidsRights Foundation. Yousafzai became the first Pakistani girl to be nominated for this prestigious award.

The announcement highlighted her courage in standing up for herself and other girls, using national and international media to advocate for girls’ right to education. However, the award was ultimately won by Michaela Mycroft of South Africa.

Yousafzai’s public recognition increased even more when she received Pakistan’s inaugural National Youth Peace Prize two months later in December.

On 19 December 2011, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani presented her with the National Peace Award for Youth. During the ceremony, she clarified that she was not affiliated with any political party but expressed her desire to establish her own national party to advocate for education.

In response to Yousafzai’s request, the prime minister instructed the authorities to establish an IT campus at Swat Degree College for Women, and a secondary school was renamed in her honor.

By 2012, she had plans to establish the Malala Education Foundation, which aimed to support underprivileged girls in accessing education.

Additionally, in 2012, she participated in the International Marxist Tendency National Marxist Summer School.

In a television interview that same year, she mentioned Barack Obama, Benazir Bhutto, and Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan) as her sources of inspiration for her activism.

Khan, a Pashtun leader, was renowned for his nonviolent Khudai Khidmatgar resistance movement against the British Raj.

Murder attempt

On the 9th of October in 2012, a member of the Taliban shot Yousafzai while she was on a bus heading home after completing an exam in the Swat Valley of Pakistan.

Yousafzai, who was 15 years old at the time, was targeted by a masked gunman who demanded to know her identity by shouting, “Which one of you is Malala? Speak up, otherwise I will shoot you all.”

Once Yousafzai was identified, she was shot with a single bullet that traveled 18 inches from the side of her left eye, through her neck, and ended up in her shoulder.

Additionally, two other girls, Kainat Riaz and Shazia Ramzan, were also injured in the attack. Despite their injuries, both girls were stable enough to speak to the press and provide details about the incident.

Medical Treatment

Following the shooting incident, Yousafzai was transported by air to a military hospital in Peshawar.

Due to swelling in the left part of her brain caused by the bullet passing through her head, doctors performed a necessary operation.

The bullet, which had lodged near her spinal cord, was successfully removed after a five-hour surgery.

The day after the attack, a decompressive craniectomy was carried out to create space for swelling by removing part of her skull.

A decision was made on 11 October 2012 by a group of Pakistani and British doctors to transfer Yousafzai to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi.

Dr. Mumtaz Khan mentioned that she had a 70% chance of survival. Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced that once she was stable enough to travel, Yousafzai would be moved to Germany for top-notch medical care.

A team of doctors would accompany her, and the government would cover the expenses of her treatment. On 13 October, Yousafzai’s sedation was reduced, and she displayed movement in all four limbs.

Yousafzai received offers for treatment from various countries worldwide. Eventually, on 15 October, she traveled to the United Kingdom for further medical care, which was approved by her doctors and family.

Her destination was Birmingham, England, where she received treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

This hospital is known for its expertise in treating military personnel injured in conflicts.

The UK Government confirmed that the Pakistani government covered all the expenses related to transportation, migration, medical treatment, accommodation, and subsistence for Malala and her companions.

By 17 October 2012, Yousafzai had emerged from her coma and was showing positive response to the treatment.

It was reported that she had a high likelihood of making a full recovery without any brain damage.

Updates on 20 and 21 October indicated that she was in a stable condition, although she was still fighting an infection.

On 8 November, she was photographed sitting up in bed, showing signs of improvement.

Subsequently, on 11 November, Yousafzai underwent an extensive surgery lasting eight and a half hours to repair her facial nerve.

On 3 January 2013, Yousafzai was discharged from the hospital and continued her rehabilitation at her family’s temporary residence in the West Midlands.

During this time, she received weekly physiotherapy sessions. On 2 February, she underwent a five-hour-long operation to reconstruct her skull and restore her hearing through a cochlear implant.

Following the surgery, she was reported to be in a stable condition. In July 2014, Yousafzai mentioned that her facial nerve had recovered up to 96%.

The assassination attempt garnered global media attention and evoked a strong emotional response of sympathy and outrage.

The day after the attack, protests against the shooting took place in various cities across Pakistan.

Additionally, over 2 million individuals signed a petition initiated by the Right to Education campaign, which ultimately led to the ratification of Pakistan’s first Right to Education Bill.

In an effort to bring the perpetrators to justice, Pakistani officials offered a reward of 10 million rupees (approximately US$105,000) for any information leading to their arrest.

Despite concerns for their safety, Yousafzai’s father expressed their unwavering commitment to their country, stating that their ideology promotes peace and that the Taliban cannot silence independent voices through violence.

The shooting was condemned by Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, who referred to it as an attack on “civilized people.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described it as a “heinous and cowardly act,” while United States President Barack Obama expressed his strong disapproval, labeling the attack as “reprehensible, disgusting, and tragic.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Yousafzai’s bravery in advocating for girls’ rights and suggested that the attackers felt threatened by her empowerment.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the shooting as “barbaric” and emphasized its profound impact on both Pakistan and the international community.

Madonna dedicated her song “Human Nature” to Yousafzai during a concert in Los Angeles on the day of the attack, and she also displayed a temporary Malala tattoo on her back.

Angelina Jolie, an American actress, wrote an article to explain the incident to her children, addressing questions such as “Why did those men think they needed to kill Malala?” Jolie later contributed $200,000 to the Malala Fund for girls’ education.

Laura Bush, the former First Lady of the United States, penned an op-ed in The Washington Post where she drew parallels between Yousafzai and Holocaust diarist Anne Frank.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the chief spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, labeling Yousafzai as “the symbol of the infidels and obscenity.”

He also threatened to target her again if she survived. The Pakistani Taliban reiterated their justification for the attack in the days following, accusing Yousafzai’s father of brainwashing her and ignoring warnings to stop her from speaking against them.

They cited religious scripture to justify their actions, stating that the Quran allows for the killing of those who speak against Islam, even children.

United Nations petition

On 15 October 2012, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, the former British Prime Minister, visited Yousafzai while she was in the hospital, and launched a petition in her name and “in support of what Malala fought for”.

Using the slogan “I am Malala”, the petition’s main demand was that there be no child left out of school by 2015, with the hope that “girls like Malala everywhere will soon be going to school”.

Brown said he would hand the petition to President Zardari in Islamabad in November.

The petition contains three demands:

• We call on Pakistan to agree to a plan to deliver education for every child.
• We call on all countries to outlaw discrimination against girls.
• We call on international organisations to ensure the world’s 61 million out-of-school children are in education by the end of 2015.

Criminal investigation, arrests, and acquittals

The day after the shooting, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik stated that the Taliban gunman who shot Yousafzai had been identified.

Police named 23-year-old Atta Ullah Khan, a graduate student in chemistry, as the gunman in the attack. As of 2015, he remained at large, possibly in Afghanistan.

The police also arrested six men for involvement in the attack, but they were later released due to lack of evidence.

In November 2012, US sources confirmed that Mullah Fazlullah, the cleric who ordered the attack on Yousafzai, was hiding in eastern Afghanistan. He was killed by a U.S.-Afghan air strike in June 2018.

On 12 September 2014, ISPR Director, Major General Asim Bajwa, told a media briefing in Islamabad that the 10 attackers belonged to a militant group called “Shura”.

General Bajwa said that Israrur Rehman was the first member of the militant group to be identified and apprehended by troops.

Acting upon the information received during his interrogation, all other members of the militant group were arrested.

It was an intelligence-based joint operation conducted by ISI, police, and the military.

In April 2015, Judge Mohammad Amin Kundi, a counterterrorism judge, sentenced the ten arrested men to life in prison, granting them the possibility of parole and potential release after 25 years.

However, it remains uncertain whether the actual individuals responsible for the intended murder were among those convicted.

Surprisingly, in June, it was disclosed that eight out of the ten men, who had been tried privately for their involvement in the attack, had confessed to assisting in planning it and yet were acquitted in the secret trial.

Insider sources revealed that one of the acquitted men, who had been freed, was actually the mastermind behind the assassination attempt.

It is believed that the remaining individuals involved in the shooting of Yousafzai escaped to Afghanistan shortly after the incident and were never apprehended.

The revelation about the release of the suspects came to light when the London Daily Mirror attempted to locate them in prison.

Senior police official Salim Khan and the Pakistan High Commission in London stated that the eight men were released due to insufficient evidence linking them to the attack.

Education

From March 2013 until July 2017, Yousafzai attended Edgbaston High School in Birmingham, an all-girls school. In August 2015, she achieved 6 A*s and 4 As in her GCSE exams.

For her A-Levels, she chose Geography, History, Mathematics, and Religious Studies.

Yousafzai applied to Durham University, the University of Warwick, and the London School of Economics (LSE), but ultimately received a conditional offer of three As from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in December 2016.

She was later accepted to study Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) at Oxford in August 2017.

In February 2020, climate change activist Greta Thunberg visited Oxford University to meet Yousafzai.

On 19 June 2020, Yousafzai announced that she had successfully completed her PPE degree at Oxford after passing her final exams, graduating with honors.

Personal life