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In many patriarchal societies and tribal societies,
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fathers are usually known by their sons,
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but I'm one of the few fathers
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who is known by his daughter,
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and I am proud of it.
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(Applause)
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Malala started her campaign for education
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and stood for her rights in 2007,
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and when her efforts were honored in 2011,
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and she was given a national youth peace prize,
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and she became a very famous,
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very popular young girl of her country.
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Before that, she was my daughter,
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but now I am her father.
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Ladies and gentlemen,
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if we glance to human history,
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the story of women
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is the story of injustice,
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inequality,
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violence, and exploitation.
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You see,
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in patriarchal societies,
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right from the very beginning,
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when a girl is born,
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her birth is not celebrated.
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She is not welcomed,
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neither by father nor by mother.
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Neighborhood comes
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and commiserates with the mother,
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and nobody congratulates the father.
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And a mother is very uncomfortable
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for having a girl child.
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When she gives birth to the first girl child,
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first daughter, she is sad.
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When she gives first to the second daughter,
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she is shocked,
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and in the expectation of a son,
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when she gives birth to a third daughter,
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she feels guilty like a criminal.
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Not only the mother suffers,
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but the daughter, the newly born daughter,
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when she grows old,
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she suffers too.
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At the age of five,
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while she should be going to school,
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she stays at home
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and her brothers are admitted in school.
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Until the age of 12, somehow,
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she has a good life.
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She can have fun.
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She can play with her friends in the streets,
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and she can move around in the streets
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like a butterfly.
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But when she enters her teens,
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when she becomes 13 years old,
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she is forbidden to go out of her home
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without a male escort.
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She is confined under the four walls of her home.
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She is no more,
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she is no more a free individual.
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She becomes the so-called honor
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of her father and of her brothers
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and of her family,
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and if she transgresses
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the code of that so-called honor,
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she could be killed.
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And it is also interesting that this so-called
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code of honor,
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it does not only affect the life of a girl,
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it also affects the life
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of the male members of the family.
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I know a family of seven sisters and one brother,
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and that one brother,
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he has migrated to the Gulf countries,
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to earn a living for his seven sisters
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and parents,
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because he thinks that it will be humiliating
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if his seven sisters learn a skill
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and they go out of home
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and earn some livelihood.
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So this brother,
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he sacrifices the joys of his life
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and the happiness of his sisters
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at the altar of so-called honor.
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And there is one more norm
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of the patriarchal societies.
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That is called obedience.
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A good girl, a good girl is supposed to be
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very quiet, very humble,
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and very submissive.
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It is the criteria.
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The role model good girl should be very quiet.
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She is supposed to be silent
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and she is supposed to accept the decisions
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of her father and mother
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and the decisions of elders,
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if even she does not like.
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If she is married to a man she doesn't like
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or if she is married to an old man,
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she has to accept,
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because she does not want to be dubbed
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as disobedient.
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If she is married very early,
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she has to accept.
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Otherwise, she will be called disobedient.
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And what happens at the end?
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In the words of a poetess,
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she is wedded, bedded,
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and then she gives birth
to more sons and daughters.
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And it is the irony of the situation
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that this mother,
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she teaches the same lesson of obedience
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to her daughter
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and the same lesson of honor to her sons.
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And this vicious cycle goes on, goes on.
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Ladies and gentlemen,
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this plight of millions of women
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could be changed
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if we think differently,
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if women and men think differently,
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if men and women in the
tribal and patriarchal societies
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in the developing countries,
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if they can break few norms
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of family and society,
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if they can abolish the discriminatory laws
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of the systems in their states
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which go against the basic human rights
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of the women.
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Dear brothers and sisters, when Malala was born,
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and for the first time,
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believe me,
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I don't like newborn children to be honest,
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but when I went and I looked into her eyes,
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believe me,
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I got extremely honored.
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And long before she was born,
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I thought about her name,
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and I was fascinated with a heroic
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legendary freedom fighter in Afghanistan.
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Her name was Malalai of Bevent,
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and I named my daughter after her.
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A few days after Malala was born,
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my daughter was born,
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my cousin came to,
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and it was a coincidence,
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he came to my home
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and he brought a family tree,
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family tree of Yousafzai family,
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and when I looked at the family tree,
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it traced back to 300 years of our ancestors.
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But when I looked, all were men,
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and I picked my pen,
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drew a line from my name,
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and wrote, "Malala."
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And when she grow old,
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when she was four and a half years old,
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I admitted her in my school.
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You will be asking, then, why should I mention about
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the admission of a girl in a school?
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Yes, I must mention it.
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It may be taken for granted in Canada,
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in America, in many developed countries,
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but in poor countries,
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in patriarchal societies, in tribal societies,
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it's a bit even for the life of girl.
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Enrollment in a school means
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recognition of her identity and her name.
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Admission in a school means
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that she has entered the worlds of dreams
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and aspirations
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where she can explore her potentials
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for her future life.
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I have five sisters,
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and none of them could go to school,
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and you will be astonished,
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when I was filling,
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two weeks before,
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when I was filling the Canadian visa form,
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and I was filling the family part of the form,
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I could not recall
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the surnames of some of my sisters.
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And the reason was
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that I have never, never seen the names
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of my sisters written on any document.
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That was the reason that
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I valued my daughter.
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What my father could not give to my sisters
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and to his daughters,
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I thought I must change it.
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I used to appreciate the intelligence
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and the brilliance of my daughter.
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I encouraged her to sit with me
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when my friends used to come.
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I encouraged her to go with
me to different meetings.
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And all these good values,
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I tried to inculcate in her personality.
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And this was not only she, only Malala.
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I imparted all these good values
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to my school, girl students and boy students as well.
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I used education for emancipation.
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I taught my girls,
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I taught my girl students,
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to unlearn the lesson of obedience.
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I taught my boy students
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to unlearn the lesson of so-called code of honor.
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Dear brothers and sisters,
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we were striving for more rights for women,
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and we were struggling to have more,
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more, and more space for the women in society.
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But we came across a new phenomena.
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It was lethal to human rights
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and particularly to women rights.
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It was called Talibanization.
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It means a complete negation
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of women participation
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in all political, economical, and social activities.
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Hundreds of schools were lost.
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Girls were prohibited from going to school.
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Women were forced to wear veils
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and they were stopped from going to the markets.
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Musicians were silenced,
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girls were flogged,
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and singers were killed.
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Millions were suffering,
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but few, few spoke,
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and it was the most scary thing
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when you have all around such people
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who kill and who flog,
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and you speak for your rights.
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It's really the most scary thing.
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At the age of 10,
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Malala stood and she stood for the right
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of education.
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She wrote a diary for the BBC blog,
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she volunteered herself
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for the New York Times documentaries,
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and she spoke from every platform she could.
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And her voice was the most powerful voice.
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It spread like a crescendo all around the world.
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And that was the reason the Taliban
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could not tolerate her campaign,
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and on 9 October 2012,
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she was shot in the head at point blank range.
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It was a doomsday for my family and for me.
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The world turned into a big black hole.
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While my daughter was
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on the verge of life and death,
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I whispered into the ears of my wife,
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"Should I be blamed for what happened
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to my daughter and your daughter?"
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And she abruptly told me,
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"Please don't blame yourself.
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You stood for the right cause.
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You put your life at stake
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for the cause of truth,
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for the cause of peace,
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and for the cause of education,
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and your daughter in inspired from you
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and she joined you.
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You both were on the right path
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and God will protect her."
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These few words meant a lot to me,
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and I didn't ask this question again.
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When Malala was in the hospital,
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and she was going through the severe pains
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and she had had severe headaches
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because her facial nerve was cut down,
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I used to see a dark shadow
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spreading on the face of my wife.
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But my daughter never complained.
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She used to tell us,
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"I'm fine with my crooked smile
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and with my numbness in face.
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I'll be okay. Please don't worry."
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She was a solace for us,
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and she consoled us.
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Dear brothers and sisters,
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we learned from her how to be resilient
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in the most difficult times,
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and I'm glad to share with you
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that despite being an icon
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for the rights of children and women,
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she is like any 16-year old girl.
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She cries when her homework is incomplete.
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She quarrels with her brothers,
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and I am very happy for that.
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People ask me,
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what special is in my mentorship
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which has made Malala so bold
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and so courageous and so vocal and poised?
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I tell them, don't ask me what I did.
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Ask me what I did not do.
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I did not clip her wings, and that's all.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause)