Malala Yousafzai has been awarded the prestigious Sakharov human rights prize by the European Parliament, beating US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.
Malala, 16, was shot by the Taliban in her native Pakistan on her way home from school.
Announcing the prize, the parliament's president, Martin Schulz, said: "Malala bravely stands for the right of all children to be granted a fair education. This right for girls is far too commonly neglected."
The parliament vote for Malala amid a shortlist of three nominees "acknowledges the incredible strength of this young woman", Schulz added.
She has become an emblem of the fight against the most radical forms of Islamism.
Malala was shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban on October 9 last year for speaking out against them and has gone on to become a global ambassador for the right of all children to go to school. She was taken to Britain for treatment in the wake of the attack and now goes to school in the central city of Birmingham.
She has addressed the UN, this week published an autobiography, and could become the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate today.
Canadian Alice Munro, 82, won the Nobel Prize for Literature yesterday for her tales of the struggles, loves and tragedies of women in small-town Canada.
The award-giving committee called her a "master of the contemporary short story".
She said she hoped the award would "make people see the short story as an important art; not just something you play around with until you get a novel written".
Munro said that she did not think winning the prize would change her decision earlier this year to stop writing.
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