Pakistan's Malala to be honoured at UN

Teenager shot by Taliban last year will address UN Youth Assembly and call for improvements in global education.

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who drew global attention after being shot in the head by the Taliban last year, is to be honoured by the United Nations. She will celebrate "Malala Day" on her 16th birthday delivering her first public address at the UN Youth Assembly and call for improvements in global education on Friday. Malala, who first came to public attention at the age of 11 for speaking out against a ban on girls' education, was shot in the neck and head by Taliban gunmen last October on her way home from school in Pakistan. She left a Birmingham hospital in February after she made a good recovery from surgery during which doctors mended parts of her skull with a titanium plate and inserted a cochlear implant in her left ear to help restore hearing. Malala is expected to use her speech at the UN to lecture UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and any listening world leaders on the need to keep a promise to provide universal primary education by the end of 2015. She will also hand over a petition to Ban signed by more than 330,000 people calling on the 193 UN members to finance teachers, schools and books to meet the education

Taliban threats

"From the day that terrible shooting - assassination attempt - took place, Malala Yousafzai is a symbol for the rights of girls, and indeed the rights of all young people, to an education," said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky. Now, more girls are attending schools in the Swat Valley. But the UN estimates that 57 million children of primary school age do not get an education - half of them in countries at conflict, such as Syria. According to Ban's annual report on children and conflict, 115 schools were attacked last year in Mali, 321 in the occupied Palestinian territories, 167 in Afghanistan, and 165 in Yemen. Malala and her family briefly left Swat during a government offensive on the Taliban-controlled territory. On their return, they were threatened by armed groups before the attack on October 9 last year. The family now lives in Birmingham, where Malala has undergone surgery and rehabilitation. In March, Malala joined pupils at Edgbaston High School for Girls in the neighbourhood. She is one of the favourites to become the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate this year. She has already been named as one of Time magazine's most influential people in 2013 and has reportedly secured a $3m contract for a book on her life story.