Malala Yousafzai's husband Asser Malik shared an adorable birthday wish on her 26th birthday. "Happy Birthday Malala. You don’t need any reminders of how amazing you are. But for what it’s worth you are the best partner I could have ever hoped for," he wrote
Malala's birthday is significant as it marks the day she gave her first public speech at the United Nations, just nine months after surviving a gunshot wound inflicted by Taliban fighters. 26-year-old Malala shared a post saying, "Today I’m in Nigeria celebrating my birthday with girls, a tradition I started 10 years ago."
With the resurgence of Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, Malala’s fight against terrorism and support for women's rights has become even more relevant in the current times
Daughter of education activist Ziauddin Yousafzai, Malala was born into a Yusufzai Pashtun family in Mingora, Pakistan. Inspired by the ex-Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Malala gave a powerful speech about women's right to be educated at a local press club in 2008
Malala joined Institute for War and Peace Reporting's Open Minds Pakistan youth programme as a peer educator and started writing and talking about social issues, women's issues and terrorism. Her content became famous and she was approached by the BBC Urdu to share her views about the lives of common people under militancy. Meanwhile, this was the time when Taliban began clamping down on female education, and started closing schools for girls
Malala was then featured in a documentary by the New York Times which established her as a social activist. She was awarded Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize. Her family kept receiving death threats from unknown people
On 9 October 2012, as part of an assassination bid, a Taliban gunman shot at Malala who was just 15 years old then. They inflicted a severe gun wound injury in her head after which she underwent multiple surgeries
The incident shook the entire world and many months later those involved in the attack were sentenced to life imprisonment. Soon after the recovery, Malala resumed her work as a social activist. She moved to the UK to complete her education. Later, she travelled to war-hit Syria and started building educational facilities for women with the help of the UN. Later, she founded the not-for-profit Malala Fund
On 12 July 2013, Yousafzai's 16th birthday, she spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education. The UN dubbed the event ‘Malala Day’. Yousafzai wore one of Benazir Bhutto's shawls to the UN. It was her first public speech since the attack, leading the first-ever Youth Takeover of the UN
On 10 October 2014, Malala Yousafzai was honoured with Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. She was co-awarded along with Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi. 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
Malala has a memoir to her name, “I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban”, documentary He Named Me Malala, and a film Gul Makai apart from other popular works based on her journey
Malala has won multiple awards and recognitions such as Sitara-e-Shujaat, Pakistan's second-highest civilian bravery award, Time magazine Person of the Year shortlist for 2012, Mother Teresa Award for Social Justice, World Children's Prize also known as Children's Nobel Prize and Time Magazine The 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014