A Nepalese student holds a photo of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, during a candlelight vigil to express support for her in Katmandu, Nepal, Oct.15, 2012. Yousufzai was shot along with two classmates by a Taliban gunman while they were on their way home from school on Oct. 9, 2012. She is a girls' education advocate who criticized the Taliban on a BBC-hosted blog. Yousafzai was airlifted to a U.K. military hospital where she is in recovery. Niranjan Shrestha/AP
Muslim schoolgirls from St. Maaz high school practice Vietnam Vovinam martial arts inside the school compound on International Women's Day in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad March 8, 2011. Girls from ages 10 to 16 participate in weekly sessions of self-defense during the school term. Krishnendu Halder/Reuters
A woman places flowers at a portrait of slain journalist Anna Politkovskaya, during a rally in downtown Moscow, Oct. 7, 2009. Hundreds of people rallied on the third anniversary of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, calling on the authorities to find and punish the killers of journalists and human rights activists in Russia. Politkovskaya, whose reporting focused on military human rights abuses and corruption, was murdered in 2006. Pavel Golovkin/AP
Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee acknowledges the crowd at the Columbia Business School 2011 Social Enterprise Conference in New York October 7, 2011. Gbowee, who promoted a 'sex strike' among efforts to end Liberia's civil war, shared the prize with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Yemen's Tawakul Karman. Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters
A masked woman attends a protest to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in San Salvador, Nov. 25, 2008. In 2012, El Salvador had the highest rate of femicide, or killings of women, in the Latin America region at 13.9 per 100,000. Luis Romero/AP
Feminist punk group Pussy Riot members (l. to r.) Yekaterina Samutsevich, Maria Alekhina, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova sit in a glass cage at a courtroom in Moscow, Aug 17, 2012. The women, two of whom have young children, are charged with hooliganism connected to religious hatred for a profanity-laced song critical of the Putin administration. Alekhina and Tolokonnikova are detained on a two-year jail sentence; Samutsevich has been freed on appeal and will be taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights. Mikhail Metzel/AP
Supporters of Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi clean her portrait during celebrations in New Delhi November 13, 2010. Military-ruled Myanmar freed Nobel Peace Prize-winner Suu Kyi, giving the country a powerful pro-democracy voice just days after a widely criticized election. She was elected to the Burmese House of Representatives in 2012 and continues to promote democracy there and globally through nonviolence and civil resistance. Adnan Abidi/Reuters
Yemeni women hold up a poster portraying a child bride during a sit-in outside the parliament in Sanaa March 23, 2010. The protest was organized by women's rights groups to show support to a draft law prohibiting girls under the age of 17 from getting married. In Yemen, over half of girls marry before age 18, and at younger ages in rural areas. Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
Ruhat Mengi, a Turkish journalist and human rights activist speaks, as dozens of Turkish women stage a demonstration outside the parliament to protest the rape and killing of women and children in Turkey, in Ankara, April 14, 2011. Some of them, their arms chained, accused the state of not protecting women and children despite alarming figures on rape. Burhan Ozbilici/AP
Mothers of disappeared women hold candles and an urn symbolizing the hundreds of women who have been murdered or disappeared in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, January 12, 2011. The women were protesting against the violent deaths of human rights activists Marcela Escobedo and Susana Chavez during a meeting of a national commission to prevent violence against women. Since the late 1990s the border city has been the site of unresolved deaths of women. Gael Gonzalez/Reuters
In this Aug. 25, 2012 photo, female opposition leader Isabelle Ameganvi calls on Togo's women to observe a one-week sex strike in Lome, Togo. The female wing of a civil rights group is urging women in Togo to stage a week-long sex strike to demand the resignation of the country's president. Erick Kaglan/AP
In this June 27, 2011 file photo, Yemeni activist Tawakkul Karman chants slogans along with antigovernment protesters, during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, Yemen. Karman of Yemen won the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize along with Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee. Hani Mohammed/AP
Students march on a street to protest against violence towards women, in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 24, 2012. While women have made some basic gains in civil rights from education, labor, and voting in Afghanistan since the ousting of the Taliban, there are concerns that these are in danger of declines and increase in violence, according to the country's own independent human rights commission. Mohammad Ismail/Reuters
Blindfolded Amnesty International activists dressed as nurses stand in silence during a protest in Madrid on the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women November 24, 2006. Members of the international human rights group demonstrated outside the Spanish Ministry of Health to demand that the Spanish government address domestic violence and treat it as a public health issue. Susana Vera/Reuters
An anti-government protester walks towards riot police, holding stones in her hands, during a protest asking for the release of human rights activists Nabeel Rajab and Zaynab al-Khawaja in the village of Sanabis west of Manama, Bahrain May 16, 2012. Hamad I Mohammed/Reuters
In a letter to Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani Taliban leader Adnan Rasheed said he wished he could have prevented the October attack that landed her in a hospital in Britain last year. He urged her to return to Pakistan and to school there.
A Taliban commander has written to Pakistani girl activist Malala Yousafzai, saying he regretted her shooting last year by militants and urging her to come home.
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