Pakistan faces several social, political, and economic crises with various stakeholders that suffer daily. Malala Yousufzai was a victim of a Taliban attack in swat, and while she survived the attack, the issue fueled a conversation around the globe. As shown in this specific episode of The Daily Show, the conversation isn’t only limited to female education; it plunges into other matters such as displacement, economic crisis, and trauma faced by refugees worldwide. Malala addresses the issue of the US border and how many refugees died because they weren’t allowed to seek refugee in various parts of the world. She uses her voice as a person who has faced displacement and sheds light on the lack of safety, laws, and resources.
The Malala fund is one of the few organizations helping refugees; however, the problem stems from something more profound than just a lack of resources. I believe that the refugee crisis is poorly represented in the media. Although many media outlets have focused on humanistic reporting and on telling the stories of refugees, very few journalists are trained to cover this issue – with significant consequences. The point of populations on the move has been highlighted by the Syrian exodus and its impact on Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, and Europe. Still, it is also very evident in the Americas, East African countries, Afghanistan, Iraq, and India. In this context, untrained reporters are failing to pick up the relevance of differences between the terms “migrants,” “asylum-seekers,” and “refugees.” Another result of unprepared journalists is that the media have often reduced refugees to an image where they are either a (male) threat or a group of victims. They both create a “us and them,” which reveals differences at the expense of covering shared human issues amongst residents and newcomers.
Link to the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7c0BW2Twg4