was recognised as an Agent of Change by the British High Commission, Islamabad. In 2013, she received the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy, and was acknowledged as one of the 100 Leading Global Thinkers of 2013 by Foreign Policy magazine. In August 2014, she was awarded the International Humanist of the Year Award by Humanists International at the World Humanist Congress in Oxford, England. She was elected to Humanists International's Board of Directors in 2017. In 2021, she was appointed Humanists International's first ever Ambassador. In recognition of her efforts to further women's empowerment, she received the 2015 Asia Region Commonwealth Youth Award for Excellence in Development, under the theme of Democracy and Human Rights. In 2016, her organisation Aware Girls was awarded the Fondation Chirac Peace Prize for Conflict Prevention, which was presented to Ismail by the then French president Francois Hollande. In 2017, Ismail was the joint winner, along with the murdered Indian journalist-turned-activist Gauri Lankesh, of the Anna Politkovskaya Award, Reach All Women in War (RAW in WAR) award, for campaigning against religious extremism. See also Malala Yousafzai Sanna Ejaz Bushra Gohar Asma Jahangir Fouzia Saeed References External links "I Advocated for Women’s Equality in Pakistan. Then I Was Attacked.", article by Gulalai Ismail, TheHumanist.com, 29 May 2014 Tribute to Gulalai Ismail at the 2013 Democracy Award, National Endowment for Democracy, 17 July 2013 1986 births Living people Pashtun nationalists Pakistani human rights activists Pakistani humanists Pakistani feminists Feminism in Pakistan Women's rights in Pakistan Josef Korbel School of International Studies people University of Denver alumni Quaid-i-Azam University alumni People from Peshawar People from Swabi District Pashtun women Pashtun Tahafuz Movement politicians Pakistani prisoners and detainees Pakistani emigrants to the United States