Thaindian News

Oslo, Oct 7 (THAINDIAN NEWS) This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to three women. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on Friday that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; Yemeni rights’ activist and campaigner Tawakkul Karman and Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee are the winners of this year’s prize.

At the ceremony which will be held in Oslo later in the year, the three women will be given $1.4 million prize money and medals for their efforts toward world peace. The Nobel Committee paid glowing tribute to the efforts of the women in bringing peace to the world.

The chairman of the committee Thorbjoern Jagland said the contribution of the three women have shown that the world cannot have the lasting peace that we aspire for if women are sidestepped.

72-year-old Sirleaf became the first African female leader when she won a hotly contested poll in Liberia in 2005. She is seeking for a second term and the announcement comes just a day to her re-election bid.

Relatively unknown 39-year-old Gbowee played an influential part in bringing the decades-old war in Liberia to an end. Towards the end of the war in the country, she organized some women for demonstrations. She also encouraged sex strike as a means to get the men to stop fighting.

32-year-old Karman is being recognized for the role that she played in the Yemeni uprising. She is credited with fighting for the rights of the country’s women. The demonstrations in Yemen against the country’s leadership have resulted in the death of several people.