Malala's father hopes to return to Pakistan

Child activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner's father says true manhood is to believe in women's freedom

Child activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousufzai's father, Ziauddin Yousufzai, has expressed his desire to return to Pakistan some day.

Malala, who survived a Taliban attack in 2012, was treated at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The high-achiever's father Ziauddin told the Sunday Times that he was thankful to the British government for their assistance after the Taliban attack. However, he wished to return to Pakistan, where he intends to establish a school for the children in Swat who cannot afford an education.

Read: Third anniversary of attack on Malala passes quietly

"I love the UK, it's a great country and I am very grateful. I've even got used to the rain. But I didn't choose it for myself. I am struggling, Ziauddin said."

The rights activist further added, "realities have turned into dreams and I am struggling to turn those dreams back to realities."

Though proud of his daughter's achievements, Ziauddin said "the global recognition has cost the family the land we lived in. It would be better if I was in Pakistan and people there knew me as Malala's dad."

In an upcoming documentary, He Named Me Malala, main focus has been on the father-daughter relationship.

Read: Malala aspires to be prime minister

Further, speaking at the Women in the World conference last week in London, the activist said men who do not believe in the same level of equality and freedom for women are guilty of 'real cowardice'.

"Why should we paralyse half of our population? Why this kind of manhood - that I believe in controlling my wife and my sisters and my daughters?

"They are individuals, they have their own personality and their own life, and the true manhood is to believe in their freedom," Ziauddin stated.

This article originally appeared on BT