By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-11 08:46:37 | Updated at 2025-01-11 12:06:58
3 hours ago
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai said she was “overwhelmed” to be back in her native Pakistan on Saturday, as the prime minister launched a global summit on girls’ education in the Islamic world.
The summit has brought together education leaders from Muslim-majority countries, but has been snubbed by Pakistan’s neighbour Afghanistan – the only country in the world where girls’ are banned from school.
“The Muslim world including Pakistan faces significant challenges in ensuring equitable access to education for girls,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said at the opening of the summit, backed by the Muslim World League.
“Denying education to girls is tantamount to denying their voice and their choice, while depriving them of their right to a bright future.”
Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui told reporters that the government “had extended an invitation to Afghanistan but no one from the Afghan government was at the conference”.
Yousafzai, who was shot by Pakistani Taliban militants in 2012 when she was a girl, is scheduled to address the conference on Sunday.
“I’m truly honoured, overwhelmed and happy to be back in Pakistan,” she told journalists as she arrived at the conference in the capital Islamabad with her parents.
