ABUJA, Nigeria — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teen who survived a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012, marked her 17th birthday Monday with a visit to Nigeria and urged Islamic extremists to free the 219 schoolgirls who were kidnapped there three months ago, calling them her "sisters."
Yousafzai, who has become an international symbol for women's rights in the face of hard-line Islam, said Nigeria's president promised to meet for the first time with the abducted girls' parents.
"My birthday wish this year is 'Bring Back Our Girls' now and alive," she said, using the social media slogan that has been picked up around the world to demand freedom for the girls, who were abducted in April by the extremist group Boko Haram from a school in the remote northeast Nigerian town of Chibok.
Malala appealed directly to their captors.
"Lay down your weapons. Release your sisters. Release my sisters. Release the daughters of this nation. Let them be free. They have committed no crime."
She added: "You are misusing the name of Islam ... the Koran teaches brotherhood."
Malala also spoke against the custom of child brides in her home country, a tradition common in Nigeria, too. Boko Haram has threatened to sell some of the girls as brides if its fighters are not freed.
"Protect girls from cruelty," she said in her annual Malala Day speech, saying girls should not be forced to marry or to leave school to become brides "when they should be girls," or to give birth to children "when they themselves are children."
Boko Haram attacks continued over the weekend with witnesses blaming the group for the bombing of a major bridge on a northeast Nigerian highway that further limits access to its base camps in the Sambisa Forest, where it is believed to be holding some of the girls.