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On December 2nd, 2003, the UN announced the six recipients of its quinquennial (five years) United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights. The six awardees were honored at ceremonies that took place at UN Headquarters in New York on December 10, 2003, International Human Rights Day. Three of the awardees were women and/or women’s groups. They are:
Sra. Enriqueta Estela Barnes de Carlotto, for her work as President of the Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Association of Plaza de Mayo Grandmothers). The association was established in response to the forced or involuntary disappearance of hundreds of children following the military coup in Argentina in 1976, when children were either abducted with their parents, or born in clandestine detention centers for young pregnant women. Since then, Sra. Barnes de Carlotto and the Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo have located many missing and kidnapped children and restored them to their rightful families.
Ms. Shulamith Koenig, honored for creating a global human rights culture through her establishment of the People’s Decade for Human Rights Education. Specific attention is drawn to her work in support of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education; her initiation of the "Human Rights Cities" project, a three-year global program to train 500 young community leaders in strengthening human rights, civil society and democracy, which will be implemented in thirty cities; and her tireless work with human rights advocates and community leaders in more than sixty countries to promote societal change through human rights education.
The Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET), a network of women’s organizations from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea working for regional peace and security through advocacy, conflict prevention and resolution and peace building. MARWOPNET has been active at both the grassroots level and the highest levels of government and in 2001 played an instrumental role in bringing the three leaders of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to the peace table, thus averting the outbreak of hostilities between the three countries. More recently, MARWOPNET was a delegate, mediator and signatory to the Liberian peace talks in August 2003.
The other prize winners are Mr. Deng Pufang, of China, who is the founder and director of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, which he established in 1988 to act as an international advocate for the rights of persons with disabilities; and The Family Protection Project Management Team, of Jordan, which is a groundbreaking initiative led by a team of seven men and five women, representing both governmental and non-governmental organizations, that has helped to lift the taboo on the subject of domestic violence and promote open debate on issues of human rights and gender equality.
A special posthumous award will be given to the late UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello, of Brazil, who held many other high level positions within the United Nations, including most recently, Special Representative of the Secretary-General, in Iraq. He served the UN cause for more than thirty years, until he was killed in Iraq with twenty-one others, on August 19, 2003.
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