Malala received EU’s Sakharov Prize

The young Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by Taliban after campaigning for better rights for girls in Pakistan, yesterday received the Sakharov Prize of the European Union, which she dedicated to Freedom of Conscience, “the unsung heroes of Pakistan” and to human rights campaigners worldwide.”

“Children in countries such as Pakistan don’t want an iPhone, a PlayStation or chocolates, they just want a book and a pen”, said Malala during the awards ceremony at which she was accompanied by her father, Master Ziauddin Yousafzai, who urged her to write a blog to report problems of girls in Pakistan, when she was 12 years old.

Malala, 16, who chooses to talk about education and not about the war, claimed the attention of the European Union for the millions of children in the world who have no access to education. Regretted also the women suffering from “sexual harassment that are not allowed to go beyond the perimeter of their house.”

“We have to change our mentality. A country is not stronger by the number of soldiers it has, but by its literacy rate,” she said.

” I do not want to be known as the girl who was shot by Taliban, but a girl who fights for education. I want to devote my life to this cause,” she quotes a passage from the book “I am Malala” .