Last week the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to three women leaders for their work to better women’s rights.
The Nobel committee said it hoped the prize – awarded to Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni pro-democracy leader Tawakul Karman – would “help to bring an end to the suppression of women that still occurs in many countries, and to realise the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent”.
Indeed, the three women epitomise those aspirations. President Sirleaf, Africa’s first female elected head of state, has spent many years promoting justice in the country after 14 years of bloody civil war. Despite initially backing Charles Taylor, the 72-year-old economist was elected in 2005 preaching peace and forgiveness.
Gbowee, meanwhile, was a mainstream non-violence movement leader during and after the civil war, when she mobilised women across the country’s divide to unite for a better future, as well as demand an immediate end to rampant rape of women by soldiers.
Elsewhere, Karman – a journalist turned pro-democracy activist – will surely be best remembered as the first Arab woman ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She has been protesting for several months calling for Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.
Across the world, the award has been welcomed as an important step in promoting women’s wider participation in society. We celebrate with these three women and congratulate the Nobel committee for a job well done.
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