Nobel Peace Prize: It's women all the way

The Nobel peace prize winners, this year were all women. Two were from the relatively lesser known African state of Liberia; one being the President of Liberia and the other a prominent women’s right’s activist in the country. The other winner who shared this honour was Yemeni women’s activist, Tawakkul Karman who organised protests against the Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Here’s a brief look at all the winners. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf As the president of Liberia, since 2005, Ellen vowed to fight against corruption and bring stability and peace to Africa’s oldest republic that has been ravaged by a civil war that started in 1989 and ended in 2003. Often referred to as the best Liberian president, Ellen has worked in the field of women’s empowerment and has been instrumental in bringing women and their issues to the fore, while non-violently working towards a stable Liberia. Leymah Roberta Gbowee A trauma counselor by profession, Leymah Roberta Gbowee, led the second peace movement in Liberia. Led by her, Liberian women forced a meeting with the incumbent president Charles Taylor in 2002, extracting a promise from him to attend peace talks in Ghana. She along with Ellen Jhonson Sirleaf from Liberia have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2011 for “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work”. [caption id=“attachment_101897” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Two of the Nobel peace prize winning women this yea: Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (R) and Yemen’s Arab Spring activist Tawakkul Karman (L). Reuters “] [/caption] Tawakkul Karman A Yemini politician-turned-human rights and media activist, Tawakkul Karman established the Women Journalist without Chains group in 2005 for promoting human rights and freedom of expression. She led multiple protests against incumbent Yemini president Ali Abdullah Saleh. At 32, she is one of the youngest winners of a Nobel Prize.