ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai will attend a summit on girls’ education in Islamabad. Yousafzai was evacuated from the country in 2012 after she was shot by the Pakistani Taliban, who were enraged by her activism, and has since returned to the country only a few times. A spokesperson for the Malala Charitable Fund confirmed that Yousafzai will attend the conference in person. “I am thrilled to join Muslim leaders from around the world at a critical conference on girls’ education,” she said in a post on X on Friday. “On Sunday, I will be speaking about protecting the right of all girls to go to school and why leaders must hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan women and girls.” Pakistan’s neighbor Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls and women are banned from going to school and university. Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban government has imposed an austere version of Islamic law that the UN has called “gender apartheid”. Girls are only allowed to attend primary school, while women are largely restricted to working in segregated settings in health or education. The Taliban administration claims that Islamic law “guarantees” the rights of Afghan men and women. The two-day summit will be held in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Saturday and Sunday and will focus on the education of girls in Muslim communities. It will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and will bring together ministers and ambassadors from 44 countries, as well as representatives of the United Nations and the World Bank. According to a government statement, the summit will reaffirm “the shared commitment (of) the Muslim community to empower girls through education”. Yousafzai became a household name when she was attacked by Pakistani Taliban militants on a school bus in the remote Swat Valley near the border with Afghanistan in 2012.
