Malala Yousafzai (Urdu: ملالہ یوسفزئی, Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ, pronunciation: [məˈlaːlə jusəf ˈzəj];[4] born 12 July 1997)[1][4][5] is a Pakistani female education activist, film and television producer, and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate[6] at the age of 17.

[7] 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.

The following summer, journalist Adam B. Ellick made a New York Times documentary about her life as the Pakistan Armed Forces launched Operation Rah-e-Rast against the militants in Swat.

[24] From there she won a place at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and undertook three years of study for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), graduating in 2020.

[38] In 2009, she began as a trainee and was then a peer educator in the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's Open Minds Pakistan youth programme, which worked in the region's schools to help students engage in constructive discussion on social issues through journalism, public debate and dialogue.

Their correspondent in Peshawar, Abdul Hai Kakar, had been in touch with a local school teacher, Ziauddin Yousafzai, but could not find any students willing to report, as their families considered it too dangerous.

[40] At the time, Pakistani Taliban militants led by Maulana Fazlullah were taking over the Swat Valley, banning television, music, girls' education,[41] and women from going shopping.

[48] Three days later, Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi leader Maulana Fazlulla announced on his FM radio station that he was lifting the ban on women's education, and girls would be allowed to attend school until exams were held on 17 March, but that they had to wear burqas.

They made one stop first—to meet with a group of other grassroots activists that had been invited to see United States President Barack Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke.

[58] The prime minister directed the authorities to set up an IT campus in the Swat Degree College for Women at Yousafzai's request, and a secondary school was renamed in her honour.

After the shooting, Yousafzai was airlifted to a military hospital in Peshawar, where doctors were forced to operate after swelling developed in the left portion of her brain, which had been damaged by the bullet when it passed through her head.

[90] American singer Madonna dedicated her song "Human Nature" to Yousafzai at a concert in Los Angeles the day of the attack,[91] and also had a temporary Malala tattoo on her back.

[92] American actress Angelina Jolie wrote an article explaining the event to her children and answering questions like "Why did those men think they needed to kill Malala?

[96] Ehsanullah Ehsan, chief spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that Yousafzai "is the symbol of the infidels and obscenity", adding that if she survived, the group would target her again.

[97] In the days following the attack, the Pakistani Taliban reiterated its justification, saying Yousafzai had been brainwashed by her father: "We warned him several times to stop his daughter from using dirty language against us, but he didn't listen and forced us to take this extreme step.

Islamic scholars from the Sunni Ittehad Council publicly denounced attempts by the Pakistani Taliban to mount religious justifications for the shooting of Yousafzai and two of her classmates.

[102][103][104][105] 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,[106] and launched a petition in her name and "in support of what Malala fought for".

[107] The petition contains three demands: The day after the shooting, Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik stated that the Taliban gunman who shot Yousafzai had been identified.

[114] 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".

In June 2015, the Malala Fund released a statement in which Yousafzai argues that the Rohingya people deserve "citizenship in the country where they were born and have lived for generations" along with "equal rights and opportunities."

"[141] Yousafzai also posted a statement on Twitter calling for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to condemn the treatment of the Rohingya people in Myanmar.

[173] In July 2021, amid a major offensive by the Taliban insurgents, Yousafzai urged the international community to press for an immediate ceasefire in Afghanistan and provide humanitarian aid to Afghan civilians.

[180] On 7 March 2022, Malala Yousafzai advocated for every woman's right to decide to wear what she likes for herself, from a burqa to a bikini: "Come and talk to us about individual freedom and autonomy, about preventing harm and violence, about education and emancipation.

[188][189] A Dawn columnist said she was scapegoated by the "failing state government,"[188] and a journalist in The Nation wrote Yousafzai was hated by "overzealous patriots" who were keen to deny the oppression of women in Pakistan.

[200] People in India accused her of spreading the "Pakistani agenda" over the Kashmir conflict, and being selective in condemning human rights abuses,[201][202][203] while in Pakistan she was criticised for being late in her response.

[205][206] She was condemned by Pakistani authors Nida Kirmani and Mehr Tarar over a Broadway musical she co-produced with former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had rejected calls for ceasefire in Gaza.

[207][208] Yousafzai's memoir I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban, co-written with British journalist Christina Lamb, was published in October 2013 by Little, Brown and Company in the US and by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK.

[210] Marie Arana for The Washington Post called the book "riveting" and wrote "It is difficult to imagine a chronicle of a war more moving, apart from perhaps the diary of Anne Frank.

[219] Rebecca Gurney of The Daily Californian gives the book a grade of 4.5 out of 5, calling it a "beautiful account of a terrifying but inspiring tale" and commenting "Though the story begins with fantasy, it ends starkly grounded in reality.

"[220] In March 2018, it was announced that Yousafzai's next book We Are Displaced: True Stories of Refugee Lives[221] would be published on 4 September 2018 by Little, Brown and Company's Young Readers division.