Nobel to trio of peacemaking women

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Yemeni campaigner Tawakkul Karman have been jointly awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first woman to be elected head of state in an African country, and the first person to lead a reconciled Liberia following the country’s devastating civil wars that ran from the late 1980’s into the first half of the last decade. Leymah Gbowee is a peace activist in Liberia, whose “Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement was instrumental in bringing the civil strife in her country to an end. Tawakkul Karman is a campaigner for human and civil rights in Yemen, where she heads the Women Journalists Without Chains advocacy group, and organizes peaceful protests in the capital San’aa, agitating for democratic reform. The citation from the Nobel Committee expresses the hope that the award this year will help 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. Listen