Friday, October 7, 2011

Nobel Peace prize for 3 women



Nobel peace prize 2011 is handed jointly to three women. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, her compatriot Leymah Gbowee, and Yemeni women's rights activist Tawakkul Karman.

The award was intended as a strong signal in favour of the empowerment of women in the developing world.

The Norwegian committee said it had honoured the three women "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work". It was the first time a woman had been given the prize in seven years.


Prize committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland said he hoped the prize would bring more attention to the violence against women as well as women's role in promoting democracy in Africa and the Arab and Muslim world.

The below picture shows Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Tawakkul Karman of Yemen and Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee.





Tawakkul Karman is known among Yemenis as the "iron woman" and the "mother of the revolution" .

For the past eight months, the 32-year-old has been at the forefront of the daily protests by hundreds of thousands in the streets of Sanaa and other Yemeni cities, demanding Saleh's ouster and the creation of a democratic government.

Karman says "I am very very happy about this prize" , and she says "I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people"


Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf, 72 has been widely praised for leading Liberia out of years of civil war and brutality and for reducing rampant corruption.

Johnson Sirleaf is a Harvard-trained economist who became Africa's first democratically elected female president in 2005.

She was seen as a reformer and peacemaker in Liberia when she took office. She is running for re-election this month and opponents in the presidential campaign have accused her of buying votes and using government funds to campaign. Her camp denies the charges

Ms. Gbowee, who organized a group of Christian and Muslim women to challenge Liberia's warlords, was honored for mobilizing women "across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women's participation in elections."


Read below the Official press release from the Nobel prize issuing organization.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 is to be divided in three equal parts between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work. 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.

In October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325. The resolution for the first time made violence against women in armed conflict an international security issue. It underlined the need for women to become participants on an equal footing with men in peace processes and in peace work in general.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Africa’s first democratically elected female president. Since her inauguration in 2006, she has contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women. Leymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war. In the most trying circumstances, both before and during the “Arab spring”, Tawakkul Karman has played a leading part in the struggle for women’s rights and for democracy and peace in Yemen.

It is the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s hope that the prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman will 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.


The Nobel peace prize is handed out in Oslo, Norway, while the other five awards (medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics) are presented in Stockholm.


Last year's Nobel peace prize went to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Mr. Liu was not allowed to leave China to receive the prize and was represented on stage at the award ceremony last December by an empty chair


The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes created by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It is a highly regarded award, recognised internationally.


According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who
...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

Each year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee specifically invites qualified people to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nominations are considered by the Nobel Committee at a meeting where a short list of candidates for further review is created. This short list is then considered by permanent advisers to the Nobel institute, which consists of the Institute's Director and the Research Director and a small number of Norwegian academics with expertise in subject areas relating to the prize.

The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway on 10th December each year (the anniversary of Nobel's death) . The Nobel laureate receives a diploma, a medal and a document confirming the prize amount. As of 2009, the prize was worth 10 million SEK (about US$1.4 million).

Read below some facts of Nobel peace prize.

91 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded since 1901
. It was not awarded on 19 occasions: in 1914-1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939- 1943, 1948, 1955-1956, 1966-1967 and 1972.

62 Peace Prizes have been given to one Laureate only.
28 Peace Prizes have been shared by two Laureates.
1 Peace Prizes has been shared between three persons. (Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin)

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 121 Laureates - 98 times to individuals and 23 times to organizations.


To date, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is Mairead Corrigan, who was 32 years old when she was awarded the Peace Prize in 1976.


The oldest Nobel Peace Prize Laureate to date is Joseph Rotblat, who was 87 years old when he was awarded the Prize in 1995.

The first time a Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a woman was in 1905, to Bertha von Suttner.


Find below the list of Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize since 1980.



- 2011: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

- 2010: Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

- 2009: U.S. President Barack Obama

- 2008: Martti Ahtisaari

- 2007: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore

- 2006: Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank

- 2005: International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei

- 2004: Wangari Maathai

- 2003: Shirin Ebadi

- 2002: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter

- 2001: United Nations, Kofi Annan

- 2000: Kim Dae-jung

- 1999: Medecins Sans Frontieres

- 1998: John Hume, David Trimble

- 1997: International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams

- 1996: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, Jose Ramos-Horta

- 1995: Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

- 1994: Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin

- 1993: Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk

- 1992: Rigoberta Menchu Tum

- 1991: Aung San Suu Kyi

- 1990: Mikhail Gorbachev

- 1989: The 14th Dalai Lama

- 1988: U.N. Peacekeeping Forces

- 1987: Oscar Arias Sanchez

- 1986: Elie Wiesel

- 1985: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War

- 1984: Desmond Tutu

- 1983: Lech Walesa

- 1982: Alva Myrdal, Alfonso Garcia Robles

- 1981: Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees

- 1980: Adolfo Perez Esquivel




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