Amanpour Interviews Malala, "The Bravest Girl in the World"

09:34 AM ET

Sixteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai just wanted to go to school.

But the Taliban warned her against it and, because she refused to be intimidated, shot her in the head and nearly killed her on her school bus.
Miraculously, Yousafzai survived the assassination attempt.
Now, she shares her message for girls education with the world in a town hall with CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour in New York City Thursday night.
“The thing is, they can kill me, they can only kill Malala. But it does not mean they can kill my cause as well. My cause of education, my cause of peace and my cause of human rights. My cause of equality will still be surviving. They cannot kill my cause,” she says.
“I think she's a prodigy,” Amanpour says. “Because she speaks like an adult, yet she does have that child-like nature of this optimism, this hope, this idealism."
The inspiring youth’s father, who was on stage with her last night, describes his daughter as having a defiance based on a refusal to live in slavery.
“He's one of her biggest champions,” Amanpour says.  “He was so besotted by his daughter. And he is a rare bird, too, a free and progressive thinker in a place where you wouldn't necessarily think that was the case. And he put all of that on his daughter.”
Amanpour says both Yousafzai and her father are “living proof of the desire to get educated, to not be forced into an early marriage,” as is common in some parts of Pakistan.