By Osagie Alonge
Three women have been awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, peace activist Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and rights activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen have jointly received the award ‘for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work’. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday, October, 2011.
‘We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society’, the committee said in Oslo, Norway.
The committee also disclosed that it hopes the prize will help in bring about an end to the suppression of women in numerous countries and to ‘realize the great potential for democracy and peace that women can represent’.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first and currently the only elected female head of state in Africa. ‘I’m accepting this on behalf of the Liberian people, so credit goes to them. For the past eight years, we have had peace and each and every one of them has contributed to this peace’, the72-year-old president said.
Leymah Gbowee, founder and executive director of Women Peace and Security Network-Africa is responsible for organising a peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 which led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Tawakkul Karman, a senior member of Al-Islah group, heads the Women Journalists Without Chains activist group that she created in 2005.
‘This Nobel Peace Prize recognizes what human rights activists have known for decades: that the promotion of equality is essential to building just and peaceful societies worldwide’, Salil Shetty, Amnesty International Secretary General said in a statement.
Check out the full list below:
The Nobel Prize In Physics
Saul Perlmutter, Brian P. Schmidt, Adam G. Riess
The Nobel Prize In Chemistry
Dan Shechtman
The Nobel Prize In Physiology Or Medicine
Bruce A. Beutler, Jules A. Hoffmann, Ralph M. Steinman
The Nobel Prize In Literature
Tomas Tranströmer
The Nobel Peace Prize
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkul Karman
The Prize In Economic Sciences
The Prize has not been awarded yet. It will be announced on Monday, October 10, 2011
1 comment
I’m so happy for this development. As far as justice is nt denied in entire African continent, this women has made a an outstanding and remarkable landmark. Congratulation