This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded by the Nobel Committee to two childrens’ rights activists; Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India “for the struggle against oppression for young people and children and children’s rights to education.  Children must go to school, not be financially exploited.”

Seventeen year old Yousafzi was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan two years ago.  She was on the Taliban’s hit list for her insistence on promoting education for girls.  On her 16th birthday. she explained her passion while addressing the United Nations.  “We realize the importance of light when we see darkness,” Malala explained, “We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced.  In the same way, when we were in … Pakistan, we realized the importance of books when we saw the guns.”

The Nobel committee says the other peace prize recipient, 60 year old Satyarthi, 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 founder of the Nobel Prizes, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, said the prize committee should give the prize to “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”