Here are some highlights from our 2013 Millennial of the Year Malala Yousafzai’s Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture:

And with Mandela’s legacy in mind, I asked myself: What injustice is the world overlooking? Where are we allowing inhumanity to become the status quo?

The answer for me was very clear, and very personal: the oppression of girls and women in Afghanistan.

My family and I know how it feels to live under the Taliban ideology.

At 11, I was banned from school.

At 15, I was shot and nearly killed for standing up for my right to receive an education.

We were always looking over our shoulders.

Nelson Mandela and his fellow South Africans knew that feeling well.

And their resilience and collective action in the face of injustice can inspire us.

Just two years ago, women in Afghanistan were working, serving in leadership positions, running ministries, travelling freely.

Girls of all ages were playing soccer and cricket, and learning in schools.

Though all was not perfect, there was progress. And fundamentally, girls and women had opportunities, they had choice, they had agency.

Then, the Taliban seized power a second time.

As they did in the 1990s, they quickly began the systematic oppression of girls and women.

For a short time, this made headlines.

But since then, the world has turned its back on the Afghan people….

If you are a girl in Afghanistan, the Taliban has decided your future for you.

You cannot attend a secondary school or university.

You cannot find an open library where you can read.

You see your mothers and your older sisters confined and constrained in a similar way.

They cannot leave the house on their own.

Not to work.

Not to go to the park.

Not to get a haircut.

Not to even see a doctor.

And the punishment for doing these very ordinary, everyday things is severe: Indefinite detention. Forced marriage. Beating. Death….

If we, as a global community, accept the Taliban’s edicts, we will send a devastating message to girls everywhere: That they are less human. That your rights are up for debate. That we are willing to look away. If we, as a global community, accept the Taliban’s edicts, we will send a devastating message to girls everywhere: That they are less human. That your rights are up for debate. That we are willing to look away….

Right now, millions of Afghan girls are effectively imprisoned. But they fight on; calling for justice, calling for the world to stand with them.

They are the heroes the history books can teach us about.

We must be their champions, until they are free.