JOIN USThe lives and words of four young girls, one from Pakistan and three from India, who were on high and visible world forums last week, should be a source of inspiration for the entire world. One of them, Malala Yousufsai, is well-known for the courage she showed in standing up to the Taliban who banned girls’ education in Pakistan’s violent Swat province and had to pay with a bullet in her head for her defiance. Two others, the visually impaired Ashwini Angadi from Karnataka, and Razia Sultan from a backward village in UP, who were awarded the Youth Courage Award for Education by the UN, sent out the liberating message of the power of education and personal determination. Another girl, Pinki Sonkar, who had a correctional surgery for her cleft lip which had kept her away from school, tossed the coin at the Wimbledon men’s singles championship.
All these girls fought adversities of different kinds and made their mark. Malala was undaunted by the threats of a terror machine which is challenging a superpower. Ashwini Angadi and Pinki Sonkar fought their physical disabilities and proved that they are equal members of society. Razia Sultan was once a child labourer. She is a youth leader now, pursuing her own education, and has changed the lives of a number of other child labourers who are also in school now. Malala’s call from the UN youth assembly for universal education and her statement that ‘one child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world’ underlined the basic right of every child to the word that lights up life. They also showed how far governments and societies have to go to meet this challenge. Entrenched attitudes, policies and practices have still to be overcome in most parts of the world to achieve this ideal.
It is no coincidence that all these young persons are girls, who always have to fight a bigger battle than boys to claim their place in society. Their stories are important for the hope that they give to millions of others and the positive message they convey through their struggles. It is not just child labourers, child soldiers and children in war and conflict zones who become victims of an insensitive adult world. Oppression, discrimination and denial are realities for others in societies that claim to be in peace too. These four girls have reached out to all of them with their extraordinary lives.