Malala’s father gets UK consulate job

LONDON

Malala (L) talks with her father Ziauddin at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. His father has been appointed as UK’s Pakistan’s education attaché. AFP photo

The father of a teenage Pakistani activist shot in the head by Taliban for advocating girls’ education has been given a diplomatic post in the U.K. while his teenage daughter recovers from her injuries.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, confirmed a BBC report Jan. 2 saying that Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai’s father, Ziauddin, has been appointed Pakistan’s education attaché in Birmingham. Yousafzai will initially undertake the role for three years, but could get a two-year extension. Malala, 15, has been recovering at a hospital in Birmingham, England, after she was shot in October in Pakistan. The Taliban have vowed to target her again. The position, with an initial 3-year commitment, virtually guarantees Malala will remain in the U.K.

Malala was shot on her school bus in northwestern Swat in October by Taliban gunmen for the “crime” of promoting girls’ education, but survived the murder attempt. Her case won worldwide recognition for the struggle for women’s rights in Pakistan. In a sign of her reach, the 15-year-old made the shortlist for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2012.