Malala Yousafzai, the Youngest Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Is Now a Married Woman

"We are excited to walk together for the journey ahead," she captioned her images that she shared on social media.

Cover Image Source: YouTube | CBS Evening News (Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai announces she's married)

By Devika Menon

November 10, 2021

Posted November 10, 2021

Malala Yousafzai is now a married woman!

The 24-year-old Nobel Prize winner tied the knot with her partner during an Islamic wedding ceremony in Birmingham, according to BBC. The activist said that her marriage to Asser Malik was "a precious day" in her life while sharing pictures from her Nikkah ceremony on Instagram.

"Today marks a precious day in my life. Asser and I tied the knot to be partners for life. We celebrated a small nikkah ceremony at home in Birmingham with our families. Please send us your prayers. We are excited to walk together for the journey ahead," she captioned her images.

The Pakistani national, who is simply known as Malala, was targeted by the Taliban when she was just an 11-year-old living in the city of Mingora in Pakistan's Swat Valley, simply because she refused to obey orders banning girls from school, reports NPR. It was a fatal attack which she survived. Post that she along with her family relocated to Birmingham, which she later called "a second home".

When she was 15, she was shot in the head, by a Taliban gunman in an attempted assassination. Two of her friends were also attacked that day. But, she survived, and the same year, she launched the Malala Fund, a global girls' education charity. The next year, when she turned 16, she delivered a speech at the United Nations, emphasizing the need for gender equality.

At 17, she wrote a memoir, titled Malala, about her life and experiences, which led to her becoming an international best-selling author. After all of this, she added one more impressive achievement to her name by becoming the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

In June 2020, the brilliant activist graduated with honors from the University of Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.

The news of her marriage comes after she previously revealed her misgivings around marriage in the July 2021 issue of British Vogue. “I still don’t understand why people have to get married,” she told Sirin Kale. “If you want to have a person in your life, why do you have to sign marriage papers, why can’t it just be a partnership? My mum is like… ‘Don’t you dare say anything like that! You have to get married, marriage is beautiful.’”

But, it is most likely that watching her university friends settle down gradually opened her mind to the prospect of marriage.

“Even until my second year of university,” she said, “I just thought, ‘I’m never going to get married, never going to have kids – just going to do my work. I’m going to be happy and live with my family forever. I didn’t realize that you’re not the same person all the time,” she continued. “You change as well and you’re growing.”