Malala speaks up for Boko Haram kidnap girls on Nigeria trip

Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai was greeted with cheers by dozens of young women in northeastern Nigeria, where she spoke out for the many girls abducted under Boko Haram’s deadly insurgency.

The 20-year-old Pakistani activist said she was excited by the courage of the young women who are undaunted as they pursue an education amid one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

“This is part of my girl power trip, visiting many parts of the world,” said Ms Yousafzai.

She also met the freed Chibok schoolgirls taken in a mass abduction by Boko Haram more than three years ago.

“I am here now because of the Nigerian girls. Fighting for them and speaking up for them.”

Ms Yousafzai visited internally displaced camps in and around the city of Maiduguri, where thousands have sheltered from Boko Haram’s violence. The extremist group continues to carry out deadly attacks there, often using young female suicide bombers.

“They have lived in the period of extremism,” she said of the young women around her. Many have seen family members killed.

Ms Yousafzai was 15 when she shot in the head by Taleban militants in 2012, targeted due to her advocacy for women’s education.

The Nobel laureate said her Nigeria visit was significant because it was the partial fulfilment of what she advocated the last time she was there.

In 2014, she pressed thenpresident Goodluck Jonathan to ensure the rescue of the more than 200 abducted Chibok schoolgirls.

On Monday, she met more than 100 who have since been rescued and now stay in the capital, Abuja, for what the government calls rehabilitation.

While she said she shared their joy at being freed, she added that she was not happy that the girls have not been allowed to reunite fully with their families.

She said she hopes they will “live with their family, live a normal life”.

Many others remain in Boko Haram captivity, “and the government must unite so that they should make sure that these girls are released”, she said.

“Boko Haram themselves should learn that in Islam such things are unacceptable,” she added.“thisisagainsthumanity, this is against Islam.”

Ms Yousafzai earlier met acting President Yemi Osinbajo, speaking up for the more than 10 million children displaced by Boko Haram and pressing for the declaration of a state of emergency for education in Nigeria.