Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India on Wednesday received the Nobel Peace Prize for risking their lives to fight for children’s rights. Seventeen-year-old Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel winner, and Satyarthi, age 60, collected the award at a ceremony in the Norwegian capital to a standing ovation

    MALALA YOUSAFZAI vowed to struggle for every child’s right to go to school as she became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate, sharing the Peace Prize with Indian campaigner Kailash Satyarthi.

    “I will continue this fight until I see every child in school,” the 17-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl told an audience in Oslo City Hall on Wednesday.

    Yousafzai became a global icon after she was shot and nearly killed by the Taliban in October 2012 for insisting that girls had a right to education.

    In a speech peppered with self-deprecating humor, she used the award ceremony to call not just for education but also for fairness and peace.

    “The so-called world of adults may understand it, but we children don’t. Why is it that countries which we call ‘strong’ are so powerful in creating wars, but so weak in bringing peace?” she said.

    “Why is it that giving guns is so easy, but giving books is so hard? Why is it that making tanks is so easy, but building schools is so difficult?”

    Yousafzai, who described herself as the “first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers,” triggered applause and also frequent outbursts of laughter during her speech.

    But the underlying message was that a world that may soon be able to send a person to Mars still allows millions to suffer from “the very old problems of hunger, poverty, injustice and conflicts.”

    Moments after Yousafzai received the prize, a man carrying a Mexican flag walked towards her, but was caught by security.

    The motives of the man, who was later identified as a student and asylum seeker from Mexico, were unknown.

    Before the ceremony, Yousafzai and Satyarthi met with 7,000 Norwegian children aged between 6 and 14 in the heart of Oslo.

    “You have given me so much energy,” Yousafzai said.

    “You might not know it but there are so many girls who cannot go to school, there are so many boys who cannot go to school,” she said.

    “They have never dreamed of any iPad, any Play Station, any Xbox.

    “The only thing that they dream of is a school, is a book and is a pen,” she said.

    Satyarthi, 60, was recognized by the Nobel committee for a 35-year battle to free thousands of children from virtual slave labor.

    “I refuse to accept that the world is so poor, when just one week of global military expenditure is enough to bring all of our children into classrooms,” he said after receiving the prize.

    “I refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be... stronger than the quest for freedom.”

    Yousafzai’s family runs a chain of schools in the region. She first starting receiving attention in 2009, after she wrote an anonymous diary for BBC Urdu about life under Taliban rule in northwest Pakistan.

    She wrote about her life under Taliban occupation, their attempts to take control of the valley and her views on promoting education for girls in the Swat Valley.

    The following summer, journalist Adam B. Ellick made a New York Times documentary about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.

    On the afternoon of Oct. 9, 2012, Yousafzai boarded her school bus in the northwest Pakistani district of Swat. A gunman asked for her by name, then pointed a pistol at her and fired three shots. One bullet hit the left side of Yousafzai’s forehead, traveled under her skin through the length of her face, and then went into her shoulder.

    In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation. She has been based in England with her family ever since, continuing both her education and activism.

    On Oct. 12, a group of 50 Islamic clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her, but the Taliban reiterated their intent to kill Yousafzai and her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. Some Pakistanis believe the shooting was a CIA setup and many conspiracy theories exist.

    The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai. Deutsche Welle wrote in January 2013 that Yousafzai may have become “the most famous teenager in the world.” United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launched a U.N. petition in Yousafzai’s name, using the slogan “I am Malala” and demanding that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015 — a petition which helped lead to the ratification of Pakistan’s first Right to Education Bill.

    For the first time ever, the blood-soaked school uniform she wore when she was shot near her home in the Swat Valley in October 2012 will go on display in an exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo this week.

    When asked why she thinks some Islamic extremist groups are opposed to education for girls, Yousafzai, dressed in a multi-colored headscarf, replied, “Unfortunately, those people who stand against education, they sometimes themselves are uneducated or they’ve been indoctrinated.”

    Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Yousafzai, calling her the “pride” of his country.

    “Her achievement is unparalleled and unequalled. Girls and boys of the world should take the lead from her struggle and commitment,” he said in a statement.

    Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi joined thousands of Twitter users praising the pair, saying the entire nation was proud of Satyarthi’s “momentous achievement.”

    He also congratulated Yousafzai for her “journey of immense grit and courage.”

    Yousafzai was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2013 and awarded the EU’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize that year.

    She had been hotly tipped to win last year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

    Her win in 2014 takes the number of women awarded the prize to 16 out of 95. (SD-Agencies)