‘I’m proud of my friend’: Malala lauds Angelina Jolie for her book on children’s rights

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai recently took to Instagram to praise actor and UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie for her book on children’s rights titled Know Your Rights and Claim Them. 

Sharing a picture with Angelina, Malala wrote about how proud she is of the actor for penning a book on the topic. She wrote, “I'm proud of my friend Angelina Jolie and Amnesty [International] for writing Know Your Rights, a book to give children the knowledge they need to stand up to injustice in their own lives and around the world.”

Malala continued, emphasising the importance of children’s rights, “To the children and young people who are reading this: You have rights that are equal in status to that of any adult. No one has the right to harm you, to silence you, to tell you what to think or believe, to treat you as if you don’t matter, or to prevent you from participating fully in society.”

Know Your Rights and Claim Them, co-written with human rights lawyer Geraldine Van Bueren, one of the original drafters of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, aims to equip kids with the knowledge to safely challenge injustices.

"So many children are in harm's way across the world and we're simply not doing enough," Angelina told Reuters in an interview. "These are their rights, decided years ago based on what would make them healthy, balanced, safe and stable adults." Angelina said she hoped the book would also remind governments of their commitment to the global treaty enshrining children's civil, social, political and economic rights.

During a promotional interview with The Guardian for her book, the Eternals star explained that she wrote the book because she wanted children to understand when their rights were being violated.

Angelina shared, “I’ve met too many children who live with the effect of their rights being violated – displaced people, young rape victims. I couldn’t understand why they were still fighting for basic things that were their rights to begin with. It made me very angry. How are we going to solve anything if we’re not addressing that, right?”

The actor then went on to relate the topic to her own situation in relation to her legal battle with ex-husband Brad Pitt, who has been accused of domestic abuse. “Then I had an experience in the States with my own children and I thought... well, human rights, children’s rights,” she shared. She added that this is what caused her to think about children’s rights, saying, “I remembered the rights of the child, and I took them out and looked at them and thought: well, these are for when you’re in a situation and you want to make sure there is support for the children in your life.”