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“I want all girls to be able to go to school to get an education and decide their futures,” she said on Wednesday while talking on the theme of equality. She is a member of the G7’s Gender Equality Advisory Council.

“Discrimination against women exists in all countries. It has to change and we have to take a stand to change things.”

She also said that influence is not a question of age or experience.

“Young people are already doing a lot. They are interested in the world, they are aware of the environment, inequalities, diversity,” she said while later using herself as an example. She recalled how she realized, after having been deprived of education and her future, she still had power despite her young age.

“The people who hoped to prevent girls from going to school feared my voice,” said the woman whose role model was Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to become Prime Minister of of Pakistan, who was assassinated in 2007.

“All that I wanted, was that the extremists would leave so I could return to school. I just wanted to be able to go to sleep without the fear of an attack.”

The young woman, who has published a book and started her own foundation, said she has learned to forgive her assailants. To her, hate is a waste of energy and time.

“I am not fighting against those people, I am fighting against an ideology,” she said.