runs the world..Girls! Three women
activists, 2 from Africa and 1 from
the Middle East has been named
recipients of this year's Nobel Peace
Prize Awards. They are Liberian
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf,
Peace Activist Leymah Gbowee of
Liberia, and Tawakul Karman of
Yemen, a pro-democracy
campaigner.
They were the first women to win
the prize since Late Wangari
Maathai from Kenya was named as
the laureate in 2004. Most of the
recipients in the award's 110-year
history have been men, and the
award seemed designed to give
impetus to the cause for women's
rights around the world.
In his citation, Thorbjorn Jagland,
a former Norwegian prime minister
who heads the Oslo-based Nobel
committee that chooses the winner
of the $1.5 million prize said:
"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".
Reacting to the award, Bushuben
Keita, a spokesman for Mrs. Johnson
Sirleaf's Unity Party, declared: "We
are dancing. This is the thing that
we have been saying, progress has
been made in Liberia. We've come
through 14 years of war and we
have come to sustained peace.
We've already started dancing.
"This is proof that she has been
doing well, there's no cheating in
this, this comes from other people.
She's doing very, very well. Her
progress has been confirmed by the
international community."
Another recipient Tawakul Karman,
32, said; "This is the victory of our
peaceful revolution, I am so happy
and I give this award to all of the
youth and all of the women across
the Arab world, in Egypt, in
Tunisia."
"We cannot build our country or
any country in the world without
peace," she concluded.
Another Liberian recipient, Leymah
Gbowee, 39, was cited by the Nobel
committee for uniting Christian and
Muslim women against her
country's warlords. As head of the
Women for Peace movement, she
was praised for mobilizing women
"across ethnic and religious
dividing lines to bring an end to
the long war" that raged for years
in Liberia until its end in 2003 and
for ensuring "women's
participation in elections."
Congratulations to them.
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