Do we like Malala Yousafzai?
Our score: 9 out of 10. She has spent her adult life on girls' education, backed trans rights in her own words and put real money behind her causes, with only a contested spat over Gaza and Hillary Clinton.
Malala grew up in Mingora, in Pakistan's Swat Valley, and became known as a schoolgirl when the Pakistani Taliban controlled the valley and banned girls' education. She wrote a BBC Urdu diary under the pen name Gul Makai. On 9 October 2012 TTP gunmen shot her near her school van, and she has lived in Birmingham since because of continuing threats.
Instead of going quiet she founded the Malala Fund in 2013, spoke at the UN, and in 2014 became the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner at 17. That is the formative thing: a kid who was targeted for wanting school and turned it into a global campaign.
On the harm test, her record is clean as a whistle. In 2023 she said of the film Joyland that casting a trans woman in the lead role was critical, and that trans people should have the same rights as everyone else. Her focus is women and girls, and nothing in our searches shows her pushing anti-trans, anti-migrant, anti-vax or climate-denial lines.
In January 2025 she told a summit of Muslim leaders in Islamabad that the Taliban do not see women as human beings, and urged them not to legitimise the Taliban government. That is a fair bit of courage from someone who has copped a Taliban bullet already. She has also named what she calls gender apartheid and pushed leaders to act.
Her messiest stoush is about Gaza and Hillary Clinton. In April 2024 she was criticised in Pakistan for co-producing the Broadway musical Suffs with Clinton, with one columnist calling it a blow to her credibility. She replied on X that she wanted no confusion about her support for Gaza's people and called for a ceasefire. Where you land depends on whether you see a pragmatic collaboration or a clash with her stated values.
In May 2025 she posted that she was sick to her stomach at Israel's cruelty and brutality in Gaza, and called for urgent action. Critics in Pakistan have long accused her of promoting a Western feminist agenda, a charge her supporters see as a way to dodge her message. That sits alongside her donations and visits in Pakistan.