Malala calls for solidarity against gender oppression in Afghanistan – SABC News – Breaking news, special reports, world, business, sport coverage of all South African current events. Africa's news leader.

Global champion for girls’ education and youngest Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai has pleaded for South Africa’s solidarity in the fight against gender oppression in Afghanistan.

Yousafzai was speaking at the official National Women’s Day event taking place at the Union Buildings in Pretoria this Sunday, which commemorates the 70-year anniversary of the Women’s March.

She was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban in October 2012 for her gender activism.

WATCH | The youngest Nobel Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai, has hailed the courage of the women who led the 1956 protest against the pass laws. She says South Africa has inspired many movements around the world. pic.twitter.com/lF1Djq2vd2

She highlighted what she has called “gender apartheid” in Afghanistan, where the ruling Taliban has outlawed the education of girls and has made it legal for wives to be beaten by their husbands, and as she says, “has erased women from public life.”

“We look to South Africa again today to inspire the world with your courage and conviction to help us make gender apartheid a crime. To show you, as you remember those who sacrificed for your freedom, you will also stand with your Afghan sisters who are suffering today with South Africa by our side. We believe that we will all see a day like this one in Afghanistan.”