Fawzia Koofi – Afghanistan
An entire existence under the pressure of the Taliban
“Physically I am here, but my heart is still in Afghanistan, it is not easy to live like this”, confesses Fawzia Koofi in the documentary about her figure released a few weeks ago by the Arte channel. This 45-year-old Afghan politician and activist was evacuated to Qatar on a military plane in August and from there she travels around the world to continue her fight for the rights of Afghan women.
Koofi has become in the last two decades a symbol of overcoming and resistance against the Taliban. She was the first Afghan woman to work with UNICEF, founded the Movement for Change, a new political party to fight corruption and promote the defense of human rights, and in 2005 won a seat as a deputy and became the first female to occupy the vice presidency of Parliament. He paid dearly for his activism and survived two attacks.
Before the collapse of the Kabul government, he was also part of the official delegation in charge of negotiating the transition with the Taliban in Doha. Now, from the distance of exile, she strives to keep alive the struggle for the rights of Afghan women, who are subjected to more restrictions every day by the Taliban than they already suffered during the first Emirate. She gave up being a doctor because the Islamists banned women from university. Instead, she gave English classes to girls from her neighborhood, expelled from schools.
Aura Lolita Chavez – Guatemala
Forced into exile in her defense of indigenous women
«We already live the war and it is not our dynamic. We women decided that we did not want to give birth to children for the war». This is how Aura Lolita Chávez Ixcaquic, a women’s rights activist and indigenous leader from Guatemala, spoke five years ago at a conference in Barcelona. She is an international reference in the fight to preserve natural resources, what she calls defending herself from a “new invasion” at the service of “racist” ideologies and “big corporations.” Her actions have only led to her receiving death threats on several occasions. For this reason, she was forced into exile and has lived in Euskadi since 2017.
Chávez, 50, founded in 2007 the Council of K’iche’s Peoples for the Defense of Life, Mother Nature, Land and Territory, whose purpose is to protect heritage and natural resources, as well as claim the rights of women and the original peoples.
On July 4, 2012, he attended a peaceful demonstration against the mayor of Santa Cruz del Quiché, a member of the Patriot Party. On the way back, his bus was ambushed by men armed with machetes, knives and batons. Four women were injured in what would be the fifth attack against her person, of which fortunately she has managed to escape unharmed in all of them. In 2017 she was threatened with death. Even with the heavy burden of the continuous attacks on her shoulders, Lolita continues her fight, for which she was nominated for the Sakharov Prize and received the Ignacio Ellacuría prize for cooperation.
Taslima Nasrin – Bangladesh
A writer who demands politics without religion
The world became a hostile place for Taslima Nasrin when she published the novel ‘The Shame’ in her native Bangladesh nearly three decades ago. The account of the sufferings of a Hindu family in this Muslim country, caused by the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque by Hindu fanatics, infuriated their compatriots. The rejection was as angry and dangerous as the one Salman Rushdie suffered. The state condemned the offense against faith, religious leaders called a general strike and demanded the author’s death, and tens of thousands of people demonstrated to demand her immediate hanging.
The life of the writer, poet and gynecologist was a long pilgrimage in search of refuge until she obtained a residence permit in New Delhi. But at least his cause was recognized. Among other awards, she has the Simone de Beauvoir or Sakharov prizes, awarded by the European Parliament, and the universal citizen passport, granted by UNESCO.
The activist has not retracted, despite the pressure. It still continues to demand a policy not based on religion as a tool to achieve equality, since it attributes misogyny to all faiths. It also advocates a society devoid of taboos and, in the case of India, provided with a uniform civil code that does not differentiate between the sexes. His memoirs have been banned in the country of origin and continue to generate lawsuits in court.
Loujain Hathoul – Saudi Arabia
More than a thousand days confined and five years without traveling
Loujain Hathloul is the most famous face of women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia. Detained since 2018, Loujain, 31, was tried and sentenced in December 2020 for “serving an agenda external to the kingdom using the internet in order to harm the public system, in addition to collaborating with a number of people and entities that committed criminal acts in accordance with the terrorism law. After spending 1,001 days in prison, she returned home, but she cannot leave the country because of a five-year ban on foreign travel and three years of parole. You also cannot make public statements.
Activism is persecuted in Saudi Arabia and Loujain’s case was brought by a specialized anti-terrorism court, a decision criticized by the family and by the United Nations, which at all times maintained that the defense of human rights cannot be considered terrorism. “All the changes we see are not reforms, they are simple changes to hide abuses,” were the words of his sister, Lina, at a conference.
Loujain and ten other activists were arrested just days before Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman enacted a law allowing women to drive, something they had been fighting for for years. Loujain herself was first arrested in 2014 when she tried to drive her car across the border from the United Arab Emirates. That challenge cost him 73 days in jail.
Wu Rongrong – Chinese
To prison for trying to stop sexual harassment
Wu Rongrong is a tireless Chinese feminist who fights to defend women’s rights. She is a member of one of the largest feminist groups in the Asian giant, known as ‘The Five Feminists’. Her activism has put her on the ropes on several occasions, even being arrested by the authorities. Despite the vicissitudes, at 37 years old she continues to lead a movement in favor of women and without fear of the consequences of the Chinese regime.
In Rongrong’s words, “women face many difficulties in their life, but many of them remain invisible. For example, survivors of sexual harassment not only suffer untold pain, but also lack effective legal protection. Encouraging victims to seek redress instead of blaming them would help reduce sexual harassment.” Based on this idea, Wu and other activists have mobilized on many occasions to confront this scourge in China.
On March 8, 2015, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, the so-called ‘The Five Feminists’ handed out pamphlets on public buses and subways to raise awareness about sexual harassment. The plan did not catch on and the Police imprisoned ten activists for public disorder. Their arrests provoked outrage in the international community and the support of relevant figures such as Hillary Clinton. Although they were released, these women are still under surveillance.
Caddy Adzuba – Congo
Denounces rape as a weapon of war
Twenty years separate the horror from the outcry in the trajectory of the Congolese Caddy Adzuba. In 1996 she was a lost teenager in her hometown of Bukavu, separated from her family, contemplating the hardships of others who, like her, were fleeing the war. Two decades later, he received the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and denounced rape as a weapon of war in Oviedo. During this period he became aware of the terrible situation of children and women in the Great Lakes region, who had become the vulnerable victims of a long conflict and stormy economic interests.
Being a feminist anywhere in the world is an option that requires conviction and determination; in the African giant, it requires bodyguards. This lawyer and journalist works at Radio Okapi, a station promoted by the United Nations. On the airwaves, he expresses the extreme condition of those who are not only judged by a patriarchal system that condemns them to support the family since they are children, but who are also raped by soldiers and militiamen, murdered or, if they survive, disowned by their own and forced to leave their homes.
The activist calls for justice where it is most difficult to achieve, because violating women is an effective way of intimidating communities and even breaking their internal cohesion. Harassment is the price you have paid for fighting back against abuse. Adzuba has suffered two assassination attempts and receives protection from the Blue Helmets.
Nasrin Sotoudeh – Iran
Almost 150 lashes and 38 years in an unhealthy prison
The hashtag #FreeNasrin is sweeping social networks as a result of the campaign launched by Amnesty International (AI) calling for the release of Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Nasrin Sotoudeh. “She has been sentenced to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes for peacefully defending the rights of women in Iran,” recalls AI when explaining the case of this lawyer arrested and convicted for her work as a defender of women who they refused to abide by the laws on wearing the veil in the Islamic republic, where it is compulsory.
Sotoudeh, 59, is married and the mother of two children. He turned to the defense of human rights focusing on minorities in Iran, activists, opponents, journalists and minors sentenced to death. The regime soon persecuted her and imprisoned her in Tehran’s Evin prison between 2010 and 2013 on charges of “undermining national security” and “propaganda against the system.”
Five years later, he was arrested again and the Iranian Justice sentenced him to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes for crimes such as espionage, dissemination of propaganda, contempt and fueling “corruption and prostitution.” She remains locked up in Shahr-e Rey prison, south of the capital, “a former chicken farm that houses hundreds of women convicted of violent crimes in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions.” He has already carried out two hunger strikes in protest.
Tawakkul Karman – Yemen
A life in danger against oppression and inequality
Tawakkul Karman, 42, is an emblematic fighter for the rights of women in the Arab world, promoting their education and being in favor of laws that prevent girls under 17 from marrying. This Yemeni woman, political activist and journalist, has lived in exile since 2015 after receiving death threats for being an example of the fight against oppression and inequality.
In 2005, she founded the group ‘Women Journalists Without Chains’ and, in 2011, became the international face of the Yemeni uprisings, which were part of the Arab Spring. That is why she has received the names of ‘Iron Woman’ and ‘Mother of the Revolution’. At a protest in 2010 a woman tried to stab her with a dagger but her supporters managed to stop the attack. Both she and her family have received threats, although they were not an obstacle to continue being at the forefront of inequalities.
His continuous struggle led him to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for being a relevant figure in the Arab spring. Thus, she became the first Yemeni, Arab woman, second Muslim female and the second youngest to win this award. “I dedicate it to all Yemenis who preferred to make a peaceful revolution facing snipers with flowers. It is for Yemeni women, for peaceful protesters in Tunisia, Egypt and the entire Arab world,” said Karman, who assured that her award was “a victory for the revolution.”
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