Indigenous women of the Me'phaa nation from the state of Guerrero, Mexico. In 2002, members of the militia raped and tortured Inés and Valentina, who were 25 and 17 at the time. Since then the two women have courageously struggled to attain justice for the crimes committed against them—all while facing hostility from their own government.
Meet Inés Fernández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, Mexico
Meet Shirin Batshon-Khoury, Palestine
Palestinian activist who works for the Kayan Feminist Organization in Israel. The organization aims to empower Arab women in Israel and protect their rights.
The founders of Kayan felt that Arab women living in Israel experience a kind of "double-discrimination". The Kayan Feminist Association combats this discrimination with grassroots work and capacity-building to foster economic, legal and social equality for the Arab-Israeli women.
Meet Thawra Staiti, Palestine
Thawra is a volunteer with Freedom Theatre in Jenin, in the West Bank of Palestine. Freedom Theatre aims to provide empowerment and healing to children and youth of the Jenin Refugee Camp whose displacement is a result of the occupation. It offers them a respite from the unstable and often violent circumstances of life as a refugee under the occupation.
Meet Naeima Agabna Awad El Said, Sudan
Naeima is an civil society and human rights activist from Khartoum, Sudan. She has been a member of the Sudanese Women's Empowerment for Peace (SuWEP) organization since 1997, and serves as a peace-building and conflict resolution trainer. Naeima is the General Secretary for the Women Empowerment for Peace and Development Network (WEPD), an organization that works to facilitate the the inclusion of Sudanese women in local, regional and international peace processes.
Meet Maria Solis Garcia, Guatemala
Maria is a feminist law professor and women’s rights advocate from Guatemala. Maria is the founder of La Cuerda, an organization which fosters political partnerships with other social movements, researches in tandem with the ICC, and produces the only regular feminist publication in Guatemala. Maria has done extensive advocacy work with the ICC. She has written about sexual harassment, economic and social human rights, the ICC, labor laws, gender and health. Maria was Guatemala’s only delegate to the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice and has since continued to participate in activities of this group, now known as Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice.
Meet Gilda Rivera, Honduras
A psychologist and the founder of the Women Rights Center in Honduras. Her past work experience has included public politics and gender studies. She has been a member of the Feministas en Resistencia (FER) since the Honduran coup d’etat on June 28, 2009.
Meet Lona James Elia, Sudan
A Southern Sudanese activist and member of the Sudanese Women's Empowerment for Peace (SuWEP) organization. In 1998 Lona became one of the first women to participate in peace talks between the government of Southern Sudan and the Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM). She has organized numerous campaigns to raise awareness about women's political participation, representation and childhood education.
Meet Ma Pu Sein, Burma
A participant in the 2010 International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in Burma, an event co-hosted by the Women’s League of Burma and the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Ma Pu Sein was featured in "This Is My Witness", a film about the Tribunal produced by the Nobel Women's Initiative.
Meet Thin Thin Aung, Burma
A presidium board member of the Women's League of Burma (WLB), an umbrella collective comprised of 13 democracy, women's and human rights organizations. She is highly involved in the WLB's International Criminal Court project, which advocates for an official Commission of Inquiry into the widespread human rights abuses perpetrated by the ruling military junta.
Meet Sharon Dolev, Israel
Sharon is a Greenpeace Mediterranean Disarmament campaigner and activist. She is currently the Office Director of Greenpeace Mediterranean in Israel. "Our message today is loud and clear," states Sharon. "There is no place for nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which is prone to conflict to begin with. There is an immediate need for finding a way of regional discussion and agreement between the countries in the Middle-East.”
Meet Violeta Krasnic, USA
Violeta works at the Global Fund for Women as the Director of the Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (ECIS).
Meet Nayereh Tohidi, Iran
Nayereh is a human rights activist and scholar from Iran. She is a professor and the chair of the Department for Gender Studies and Women's Studies at California State University. Her areas of specialization and research include religion (Islam), the sociology of gender, and ethnicity and democracy in post-Soviet Central Eurasia and in the Middle East. She is the editor and author of an extensive body of publications about feminism and democracy, women's rights, and Islam. Nayereh is a visiting scholar at Universities of Minnesota, Iowa, Southern California, California Los Angeles and Harvard University.
Meet May Oo Mutraw, Burma
May-Oo is a former refugee from Burma and a member of the Karen ethnic nationality. She was a participant in the International Tribunal for Crimes Against Women of Burma, an event co-hosted by the Nobel Women's Initiative and the Women's League of Burma in March of 2010.
Meet Robi Damelin, Israel
Robi is a member of The Parents’ Circle, a peace group that brings together bereaved Israeli and Palestinian families who have each lost a family member to the conflict. The group aims to cultivate reconciliation, forgiveness, but most of all, peace. They serve as a reminder that the cost of the occupation runs high for both Israelis and Palestinian. The Parents' Circle has one overarching goal: to push for the development of a reconciliation framework, based on their belief that such a framework must be in place for when political treaties are ratified.
Meet Suzanne Jambo, Sudan
A human rights and civil society activist from southern Sudan. Her work with indigenous NGOs in southern Sudan has focused on the improvement of organizational structures and capacity building. She has also been involved with several Sudanese women’s organizations in their efforts to integrate women-friendly provisions into international, regional and local human rights programs.
Meet Yanar Mohammed, Iraq
Yanar is the co-founder and President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). Since it's inception in 2003, the organization has campaigned for women's political, civic and human rights in Iraq. One of it's operations is running secret women's shelters in Baghdad. These safehouses provide accommodation and support to women who have been forced to flee dangerous living situations, including domestic abuse and honor killings.