Pakistani child education activist Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian child rights campaigner, have jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize.
At the age of just 17, Malala is the youngest recipient of the prize.
The teenager was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen in October 2012 for campaigning for girls’ education. She now lives in Birmingham in the UK.
The Nobel committee praised the pair’s “struggle against the suppression of children and young people”.
Mr Satyarthi, 60, has maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests, “focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain,” the committee said at the announcement in Oslo.
Reacting to the news, he told TV news channel CNN-IBN: “It’s an honour to all those children still suffering in slavery, bonded labour and trafficking.”
Malala first came to attention in 2009 after she wrote an anonymous diary for BBC Urdu about life under Taliban rule in north-west Pakistan.
She was shot when gunmen boarded her school bus in the Swat Valley.
She has since recovered from the attack and has remained in the public eye, publishing an autobiography and addressing the UN General Assembly.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated Malala Yousafzai, calling her the “pride” of his country.
“Her achievement is unparalleled and unequalled. Girls and boys of the world should take the lead from her struggle and commitment,” he said in a statement.
Malala was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2013, and awarded the EU’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize that year.
This year’s record number of 278 Nobel Peace Prize nominees included Pope Francis and Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, although the full list was kept a secret.
Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta had also been tipped as favourites for the award.
The New Times
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