LONDON - UN special education envoy Gordon Brown will visit Pakistan next month for talks with President Asif Ali Zardari after the shooting of a child activist by the Taliban, Brown’s office said Thursday.
Brown, who was prime minister of Britain from 2007-2010, will lead a delegation that will discuss with the Pakistani government how to improve education opportunities for children. He said he was concerned about the shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai on a school bus in the Swat Valley, carried out by the Taliban in revenge for the girl’s campaign for the right to an education.
“I have asked President Zardari to pledge that Malala’s suffering will not be in vain,” Brown said in a statement released by his office.
“In response, he has invited me to lead a delegation of education leaders to visit him in Pakistan in November to talk about how he can improve opportunities for children.”
Meanwhile, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said Thursday he was “devastated” by the Taliban’s shooting of a Pakistani girl who had campaigned for girls’ rights to education. “I can’t imagine how anyone can justify maiming a child for what they consider political reasons, because they want women to be subjugated,” he said at a press conference at the United Nations.
Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his role in the struggle against apartheid, said Malala Yousafzai was a “wonderful young woman” who had much to contribute to the world.
“I am devastated,” Tutu said. Tuto was at the United Nations to deliver a report on child marriage, which he promised to campaign against with the same energy as he did against apartheid.
“We want to eradicate this practice by 2030, and why not? We ended vicious things like apartheid,” he said. “This is viciously cruel, how would you feel if it was your younger sister or your daughter?”