Malala Yousafzai tells kidnapped Nigerian girls to 'never lose hope'

Malala Yousafzai tells kidnapped Nigerian girls to &#039;never lose hope&#039;

(Image credit: Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Malala Yousafzai is calling on the world to take a stand against Boko Haram, the Islamic extremist group that kidnapped more than 200 girls in Nigeria three weeks ago.

"We should all stand up together and we should speak," the Pakistani teenager told NBC News. "These girls are my sisters. And I am feeling very sad." Yousafzai, 16, survived a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012, after she spoke out against the Taliban prohibiting girls from getting an education. She sees many similarities between her case and the situation unfolding today.

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Yousafzai told NBC News that it is important for people to protest against the abductions in order to bring awareness and hopefully prevent more from happening in the future. "It is my duty that I will speak even if no one is listening to me," she said. "I will continue... until people take action. I have learned from my life when you are speaking from truth, when you are speaking from justice, then no one can defeat you. And this is what I believe in."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.