From 2001 to 2018, millions of Afghan women and girls received an education. Currently, the future they were promised is dangerously close to slipping away. Malala Yousafzai has become an international symbol in the fight for girls’ right to education.

She was born in Pakistan, and although girls are not always celebrated there, her father, who was an education activist, was determined to give her the same opportunities a son would have. When she was 11, the Taliban moved into her valley and banned televisions, playing music and dancing. They also prevented girls from attending school, which was intolerable to her family, so they moved. Malala began to speak up about the right to education for young girls in Pakistan.

When she was just 15 years old, Malala Yousafzai was shot on her school bus during an assassination attempt by the Taliban. The Taliban is a conservative religious and political organisation. Ten days after having been shot, Malala woke up in a hospital in Birmingham, England. Her recovery took months and months. In that time, she faced a choice: she could live quietly in England, or she could continue her fight.

In 2014, two years after she was shot, she established the Malala Fund, a charity dedicated to giving every girl an opportunity to achieve a future of her choice. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize later that year, becoming the youngest-ever Nobel laureate.

Malala graduated from Oxford University, having studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics. She travels worldwide campaigning to ensure that all girls receive 12 years of free, safe, quality education. When the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan, Malala’s fears that women and girls would be banned from access to education and almost all areas of work became a reality.