Malala Yousafzai, Kailash Satyarthi win Nobel Peace Prize 2014

OSLO: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to 17-year-old Pakistani Malala Yousafzai and India's Kailash Satyarthi for their work promoting children's rights.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize saying that peaceful global development can only come about if children and the young are respected.

Malala is the youngest person to be awarded the globally prestigious annual prize.

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 is to be awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education," the jury said.



Malala Yousafzai -- who survived being shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 -- was recognised for fighting for years for the right of girls to education, showing by example that children can contribute to improving their own situations.

"This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances," the committee said.

"Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls´ rights to education."

It also said that the prize recognised work by Satyarthi to head various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain.

"Children must go to school and not be financially exploited," the committee said.

"In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation."

The Nobel Prizes in medicine, chemistry, physics and literature were announced earlier this week. The economics award will be announced on Monday.

All awards will be handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Malala Yousafzai Background



Malala was barely 11 years old when she began championing girls' education, speaking out in TV interviews. The Taliban had overrun her home town of Mingora, terrorizing residents, threatening to blow up girls' schools.



She was critically injured on Oct. 9, 2012, when a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus and shot her in the head. She survived through luck — the bullet did not enter her brain — and by the quick intervention of British doctors who were visiting Pakistan.

Flown to Britain for specialist treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, she underwent numerous surgeries, but made a strong recovery.

Malala currently lives with her father, mother and two brothers in the English city of Birmingham, attending a local school. She has been showered with human rights prizes, including the European Parliament's Sakharov Award.

Kailash Satyarthi Background



Satyarthi has been at the forefront of a global movement to end child slavery and exploitative child labor since 1980 when he gave up a career as an electrical engineer.

As a grassroots activist, he has led the rescue of tens of thousands of child slaves and developed a successful model for their education and rehabilitation.