Child-rights activists win Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly on Friday to a 17-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot in the head by the Taliban, and to India's Kailash Satyarthi - both for their championing of children's rights.

Laureates: Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi from India. [Photo/Agencies]

Malala, the youngest Nobel laureate, heard the news while in class at her school in Birmingham, England, where she moved to receive lifesaving treatment two years ago.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the pair had been chosen for their struggles against the repression of young people and "for the right of all children to education."

Malala, who fought for years for the right of girls to receive an education in her strict Muslim home region, rose to global fame after the Taliban tried to kill her in October 2012.

The Nobel committee said her campaign has been carried out "under the most dangerous circumstances".

Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokeswoman for girls' rights, the committee said.

Satyarthi, who launched a consumer campaign in the 1980s to combat child labor in the handmade carpet industry, said he was "delighted" at receiving the Nobel Prize as "recognition of our fight for child rights".

The low-profile 60-year-old activist heads the Global March Against Child Labor, a combination of about 2,000 social groups and union organizations in 140 countries. He is credited with helping tens of thousands of children gain their freedom from forced slavery at the hands of businessmen, landowners and others.

"Something that was born in India has gone global, and now we have a global movement against child labor," he told Indian television.