Islamabad, 12 January 2025 (dpa/MIA) – Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai on Sunday urged Muslim leaders to not legitimize the Afghan Taliban regime that has created a system of "gender apartheid." The education activist also criticized Israel saying, "In Gaza, Israel has decimated the entire education system."

"Do not legitimize them (Taliban)," she said addressing a global summit on girls’ education in Muslim nations that was attended by more than 150 representatives from dozens of countries except Afghanistan.

Yousafzai stated that the Taliban have implemented over 100 laws designed to strip away women’s rights, masking their actions under the guise of cultural and religious justification.

"There’s nothing Islamic about this," she added.

She said that the Taliban want to eliminate women and girls from every aspect of public life. "They have created a system of gender apartheid."

The education activist also criticized Israel's attacks on Gaza that "decimated the entire education system."

"They have bombed all universities, destroyed more than 90% of schools, and indiscriminately attacked civilians sheltering in school buildings," she said.

On Saturday, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that over 22 million children were out of school in Pakistan.

"The Muslim world including Pakistan faces significant challenges in ensuring equitable access to education for girls," he said in his opening remarks of the two-day summit.

Yousafzai, who survived a gunshot to the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 while on a school bus, expressed her happiness at returning to Pakistan, the place where her journey began.

In her address, she said more than 12 million Pakistani girls, one of the highest numbers in the world, were out of school.

Yousafzai's courageous campaign won her several global honours, and in 2014 she became the youngest Nobel laureate at age 17.