Malala Shares Nobel Peace Prize

Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India won the Nobel Peace Prize today for risking their lives to fight for children's rights. The decision made Malala, a 17-year-old student and education activist, the youngest-ever Nobel winner. When she was a student at Mingora's Khushal Public School two years ago, Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for insisting that girls as well as boys have the right to an education. Surviving several operations with the help of British medical care, she continued both her activism and her studies. Appropriately, Malala was at school in the central English city of Birmingham at the time of the Nobel announcement and is expected to make a statement later today.

Satyarthi, 60, has been at the forefront of a global movement to end child slavery and exploitative child labor since 1980, when he gave up his career as an electrical engineer. The grassroots activist has led the rescue of tens of thousands of child slaves and developed a successful model for their education and rehabilitation. He has also survived several attempts on his life. "Child slavery is a crime against humanity. Humanity itself is at stake here. A lot of work still remains but I will see the end of child labor in my lifetime," Satyarthi tells the AP. The two will split the Nobel award of $1.1 million. (More Malala Yousafzai stories.)