By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@NMF.
South Africa marked the 10th anniversary of the passing of Nelson Mandela, one of the country’s greatest icons and freedom fighter, Pakistani education activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai was the youngest to deliver Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture.
The lecture comes as the world grapples with several challenges including wars in Israel and Ukraine, which have killed thousands of innocent women and children.
Madiba as he was fondly known passed away on 5 December 2013.
Yousafzai’ remarks centred on the Taliban’s systemic oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan and raise visibility of a growing effort to expand the definition of apartheid to include gender-based oppression.
She said on Tuesday, that Taliban rule in Afghanistan has “made girlhood illegal,” as she called for gender apartheid to be made a crime against humanity.
The Pakistani activist highlighted how Afghan girls frozen out of school are “experiencing depression,” “turning to narcotics” and “attempting suicide.”
After slamming what she called the “unjust bombardment of Gaza” by Israel since the unprecedented October 7 attacks by Hamas, she said crises in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan had diverted attention from the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan. “Our first imperative is to call the regime in Afghanistan what it really is. It is a gender apartheid,” said Malala, who was 15 when a Pakistani group shot her in the head over her campaign for girls’ education.
Access to education and work for girls and women in Afghanistan has been severely restricted since the Taliban leaders took back power in August 2021.Teenage girls and women are barred from schools and universities. Thousands of women have lost their government jobs – or are being paid to stay home. Girls and women are also prohibited from entering parks, funfairs or gyms.
“South Africans fought for racial apartheid to be recognised and criminalised at the international level. In the process, they drew more of the world’s attention to the horrors of apartheid,” Malala told a packed Johannesburg theatre. “But gender apartheid has not been explicitly codified yet,” she said.
“We have an opportunity to do that right now,” she added, calling for the definition to be inserted in a new UN treaty that is currently being debated. Malala, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other leading activists are campaigning for UN member states to amend a draft crimes against humanity treaty to include gender apartheid.
Yousafzai says that she drew inspiration from Mandela as a young girl in Pakistan whose right to education was being threatened by the Taliban.
Previous speakers include the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley; former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Dr Fatou Bensouda; United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres; Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng; former US president Barack Obama; Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former South African president Thabo Mbeki.
Watch Live in the video below:
Video Courtesy of SABC