Liberian President Sirleaf & Leymah to share noble prize
By Peterking Quaye ,Monrovia, Liberia – The three women will share the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award, to be presented Saturday at Oslo’s City Hall. The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored women with the peace prize for the first time in seven years, and in selecting Karman it also recognized the Arab Spring movement championed by millions of often anonymous activists from Tunisia to Syria. It is on record that no woman or sub-Saharan African had won the prize since 2004, thereby making this award won by these Liberian worthy to celebrate and the whole Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to celebrate the day come Saturday, 10th December 2011. The committee honored Wangari Maathai of Kenya, who mobilized poor women to fight deforestation by planting trees.
Last year’s peace prize went to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was represented by an empty chair at the awards ceremony as an infuriated China would not allow him to travel to Norway.
The winners of the Nobel Peace Prize vowed Friday to work even harder to make the world see women not just as victims of conflicts, but as leaders in efforts to resolve them.
News monitored from the Norwegian city of Oslo, a day before the prize ceremony, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, her compatriot Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen told reporters they felt the award had empowered their struggle for women’s rights, democracy and peace in their home countries and beyond.
President Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female president, said the Nobel had strengthened her commitment to “to work for women’s empowerment.” She is widely credited with helping Liberia emerge from an especially brutal civil war, and dedicated the award to the women of Africa, and in particular Liberia, who have suffered in conflicts.
Madam Sirleaf was also elected president in 2005 and won re-election in November 2011.”No longer will the world exclude us,” said Gbowee, 39, who long campaigned for the rights of women, against rape and challenging Liberia’s war lords. “Because the world is finally saying to us: your skills abilities have been recognized and we are prepared to work with you.”
The peace prize committee recognized the three women for championing women’s rights in regions where oppression is common and helping women participate in peace-building.
Karman, a female icon of the protest movement in Yemen, drew applause when she proclaimed that “the period that women appears as victims. A journalist and member of the Islamic party Islah, Karman is the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The 32-year-old Yemeni also heads the human rights group Women Journalists without Chains.
