No Noble Prize for Malala

Today the Nobel Peace Prize was announced. And it was not the Pakistani girl Malala Yousafzai who won it.

Personally, I have nothing against the organisation which won the Prize, but if ever one person deserved to get it, it was Malala.

Only 16 years old and already fighting for her right to education. That takes courage, more than you can imagine. Last year she barely survived an attack of the Taliban, who are dead set against women taking education. Just imagine, when all those girls and women would know how to read and write, they'd develop a mind of their own and soon they would say 'no' against extremism!

We don't live in the Middle Ages anymore because women were allowed to school right after World War One (well, some of them already attended schools before that, but the general public only did so later on). My own grandma (born in 1900) went to school and so they all her elder sisters, but that was an exception in those days.

We can not imagine what it is to be forced to stay at home, only do housework and care for your children. You can do that, of course, but then only because of your own free will. In big parts of the world, little girls never get the chance to go to school, only their brothers do. They stay at home and help mother with the housekeeping, learn how to weave and sew (yuk!) and cook. Often they marry very young and soon have children of their own. There is the big injustice, and it takes people like Malala to go against it, even when your life is threatened.