Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Three Women (BLOG)

OSLO, Norway — Africa's first democratically elected female president, a Liberian peace activist and a woman who stood up to Yemen's authoritarian regime won the Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their work to secure women's rights, which the prize committee described as fundamental to advancing world peace.

The 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award was split three ways between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, peace activist Leymah Gbowee, from the same African country, and democracy activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen — the first Arab woman to win the prize.

"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," committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told reporters.

By citing Karman, the committee also appeared to be acknowledging the effects of the Arab Spring, which has challenged authoritarian regimes across the region.

"I am very very happy about this prize," said Karman, a 32-year-old mother of three who heads the human rights group Women Journalists without Chains.

She has been a leading figure in organizing protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh that began in late January as part of a wave of anti-authoritarian revolts that have convulsed the Arab world.

"I give the prize to the youth of revolution in Yemen and the Yemeni people," Karman told The Associated Press.

Jagland noted that Karman's work started before the Arab uprisings.

"Many years before the revolutions started she stood up against one of the most authoritarian and autocratic regimes in the world," he told reporters.

Yemen is an extremely conservative society but a feature of the Arab Spring uprising there has been a prominent role for women who turned out for protests in large numbers.

A resident of Taiz, a city in southern Yemen that is a hotbed of resistance against Saleh's regime, Karman is a journalist and member of Islah, an Islamic party. Her father is a former legal affairs minister under Saleh.

'Iron Woman'
On Jan. 23, Karman was arrested at her home for leading anti-Saleh protests. After widespread protests against her detention — it is rare for Yemeni women to be taken to jail — she was released early the next day.

Karman has been dubbed "Iron Woman, "The Mother of Revolution" and "The Spirit of the Yemeni Revolution" by fellow protesters.

During a February rally in Sanaa, she told the AP: "We will retain the dignity of the people and their rights by bringing down the regime."

Sirleaf, 72, became Africa's first democratically elected female president in 2005. She has a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University and has held top regional jobs at the World Bank, the United Nations and within the Liberian government.

Sirleaf said Friday the award was recognition of the West African state's "many years of struggle for justice, peace, and promotion of development" since a brutal civil war, Reuters reported.

"I believe we (Gbowee and I) both accept this on behalf of the Liberian people, and the credit goes to the Liberian people," she told reporters outside her private residence in the capital Monrovia.

In elections in 1997, she ran second to warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor, who many claimed was voted into power by a fearful electorate. Though she lost by a landslide, she rose to national prominence.

Sirleaf was seen as a reformer and peacemaker in Liberia when she took office. She is running for re-election Tuesday and opponents in the presidential campaign have accused her of buying votes and using government funds to campaign. Her camp denies the charges.
In a 2005 interview with The Associated Press, Sirleaf said she hoped young girls would see her as a role model and be inspired.

"I certainly hope more and more of them will be better off, women in Liberia, women in Africa, I hope even women in the world," she added.

'One of the boys'
The committee cited Sirleaf's efforts to secure peace in her country, promote economic and social development and strengthen the position of women.

"If you're competing with men as a professional, you have to be better than they are ... and make sure you get their respect as an equal," Sirleaf added. "It's been hard. Even when you gain their acceptance, it's in a male-dominated away. They say, 'Oh, now she's one of the boys."

Buttons from her presidential campaign say it all: "Ellen — She's Our Man."

Jagland said the committee didn't consider the upcoming election in Liberia when it made its decision.

We cannot look to that domestic consideration," he said. "We have to look at Alfred Nobel's will, which says that the prize should go to the person that has done the most for peace in the world."

Speaking by telephone from Monrovia, Johnson Sirleaf's son James told Reuters: "I am over-excited. This is very big news and we have to celebrate."

Liberia was ravaged by civil wars for years until 2003. The country is still struggling to maintain a fragile peace with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.

Gbowee organized a group of Christian and Muslim women to challenge Liberia's warlords.

In 2009 she won a Profile in Courage Award, an honor named for a 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by John F. Kennedy, for her work in emboldening women in Liberia.

Gbowee 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."

Gbowee works in Ghana's capital as the director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa. The group's website says she also won a 2007 Blue Ribbon Award from Harvard University and was the central character of an award-winning documentary called "Pray the Devil Back to Hell."

The group's website says she is a mother of five.

"I know Leymah to be a warrior daring to enter where others would not dare," said Gbowee's assistant, Bertha Amanor. "So fair and straight, and a very nice person."



AP