Nobel Peace Prize will inspire African women, activists
Baku, October 9 (AZERTAC). Two Liberian women being among the three joint winners of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize is recognition of the vital contribution women play in conflict resolution and an inspiration to other women in Africa, women`s groups said on Friday.
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Africa`s first freely elected female head of state, shared the $1.5 million prize with compatriot Leymah Gbowee, who campaigned against Liberia`s civil war, and Arab activist Tawakul Karman of Yemen.
“This award speaks volumes about the role of the women of Liberia in the peace process that ended the war,” said Blanthe Felmah, national project officer of the Women, Peace and Security Network-Africa (WIPSEN) whose executive director, Gbowee, is one of the winners.
“The phone has not stopped ringing at our office and there is jubilation and excitement everywhere because it is an award for all the women of Liberia and not only Leymah Gbowee or the President (Sirleaf),” she added on the phone from Monrovia.
Gbowee`s initiative is credited by some for bringing an end to the country`s civil war in 2003. The movement started humbly in 2002 when Gbowee organised a group of women to sing and pray for an end to fighting in a fish market.
Liberia`s 14-year-long civil war led to the deaths of more than 300,000 people and drove hundreds of thousands to flee to other countries as refugees or stay in camps in the country.
However, activists in the country see Sirleaf`s and Gbowee`s achievement as going beyond the borders of Liberia.
“This (Nobel Prize) would encourage other women in Africa to forge for peace in their countries and it would boost women`s empowerment initiatives across the region,” said Lena Cummings, the coordinator of Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) that works on peace and conflict resolution issues in Liberia.
The announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize came while more than 30 West African women were being given training in mediation skills at a workshop run by the U.N. entity for women`s empowerment (UN Women) in Senegal.
“We find that it is very inspiring to other women engaged in peace work,” said Josephine Odera, the regional head of UN Women in West Africa.
She said the participants celebrated the award and honoured Sirleaf and Gbowee in song and dance at the workshop being held in the coastal resort of Saly, near Dakar.
“They (participants) are so inspired and they look forward to being recipients (of the Nobel Peace Prize) in future,” she told TrustLaw by phone.
Rights groups say women are often sidelined from peace negotiations in the various conflicts that have rocked the West African region and hope that the Nobel Peace Prize would highlight the necessity to integrate them in these processes.
“This award is just extraordinary,” said Salimata Porquet the head of the regional women`s peace and security network that co-organised the workshop with UN Women.
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