"The Taliban's attempt on the life of Malala Yousafzai highlights the grim prospects for young women and girls in some areas of Pakistan," said GUE/NGL MEP Paul Murphy speaking during a debate on discrimination of girls in Pakistan in the European Parliament this morning.

Fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai, an activist advocating girls' rights to education in the Swat Valley in north-west Pakistan, was shot in the head by the Taliban on her way to school earlier this month.

"Pakistan is the third most dangerous place in the world for women," he said. "Hundreds of schools are destroyed and damaged by radical right-wing Islamic groupings which are growing stronger and it is ordinary working people, women in particular, who bear the disastrous consequences of the increasing disintegration of Pakistani society."

Murphy linked developments in Pakistan with those in Afghanistan. "The resurgence of reactionary Taliban forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan cannot be seen separately from the US-led occupation of Afghanistan and the US drone attacks in north-west Pakistan, which have killed around 3000 people. This drone war must be ended."

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