Sources and Impact of Gender-Based Violence to be Discussed by Panel Featuring 2009 Gruber Women’s Rights Prize Recipients

Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and the Women’s Legal Centre of South Africa to
 Receive Prestigious Gruber Women’s Rights Prize–
Ceremony, Panel Discussion and Presentations by Recipients and Local Participants

	Leymah Roberta Gbowee		Women's Legal Centre (WLC)

October 27 , 2009, New York, NY – Thandabantu Nhlapo and Sakiko Fukuda-Parr will co-moderate a panel discussion in conjunction with the presentation of the 2009 Gruber Women’s Rights Prize.  Delivering short presentations and discussing the relationship between violence against women in the family, in society and during conflict and war, Prize recipients Leymah Gbowee and the Women’s Legal Centre, represented by Teboho Molebatsi, a trustee of the organization, will open the discussion.  

In addition to discussing violence against women in its multi-faceted and intersecting forms, the panel will address women’s contributions to international peace.  Following discussion of the issues by the recipients, three local participants–two Virgin Islands Family Court judges and a local Women’s Rights advocate–will join the panel.  The event will take place at 4:00 pm on October 29, at the Reichhold Center for the Arts on the St. Thomas campus of the University of the Virgin Islands.

“Through their courage, determination and activism in challenging cultural and political systems that have long discriminated against women in Africa, Leymah Gbowee and the Women’s Legal Centre in South Africa have demonstrated the enormous contribution of women to progress for peace and equality, not only in Africa but throughout the world,” said Pinar Ilkkaracan, co-recipient of the 2007 Gruber Women’s Rights Prize and chair of the 2009 Women’s Rights Selection Advisory Board. “Their extraordinary successes in the legal system and in making peace through grassroots action bring not only hopes of equal rights and equal treatment to women everywhere, but also demonstrate how to create actual peace in our countries and in the world.”

Event participants will include:

Leymah Roberta Gbowee – executive director of Women in Peace and Security Network – Africa, a peacebuilding organization that acts to build relationships in West Africa to support women’s efforts to prevent, avert, and end conflicts. Ms. Gbowee was instrumental in bringing about an end to civil war in Liberia and getting women’s groups represented in negotiations and demilitarization efforts. At great personal risk, she worked with colleagues to break the power grip of dictators and warlords, culminating in the first democratic election of a female head of state anywhere in Africa. Her story was chronicled in the award-winning 2008 film Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Teboho Molebatsi – trustee of the Women’s Legal Centre – Ms. Molebatsi was recently appointed by the Board as its newest member. Teboho obtained her LLB from Wits University and, after completing her articles, practiced as an attorney with the Open Democracy Advice Centre, establishing and managing the Johannesburg branch. Thereafter she became the Managing Director of Nozala Trust (which assists women entrepreneurs in the SMME sector). She is now a partner in DM5 Incorporated. She is also non executive director of Safepack (Pty) Ltd, Izandla Women’s Initiative and the Gauteng Cricket Board.

Women’s Legal Centre (WLC) is a nonprofit law center based in South Africa that seeks to achieve equality for women – and black women in particular – through litigation, the provision of free legal advice, the support of advocacy campaigns by gender-based and other organizations, and the delivery of training to explain the impact of court decisions on women’s rights. WLC has expanded the rights of women through successful court challenges of discriminatory laws and has helped to place stricter obligations on employers’ duty to eliminate sexual harassment from the workplace.

Sakiko Fukuda-Parr - professor of International Affairs at the New School. She is a development economist working in the areas of human rights and poverty, conflict prevention, and global technology. She is on the board of several NGOS advocating for human rights and technology for development.  From 1995 to 2004, she was lead author and director of the UNDP Human Development Reports. She founded the Journal of Human Development and is on the Editorial Board of Feminist Economics.  Professor Fukuda-Parr holds academic degrees from Cambridge University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Univesity of Sussex.

Thandabantu Nhlapo - deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Cape Town.  A former deputy ambassador of South Africa to the U.S., he was appointed by President Mandela to serve on the South African Law Commission. As chair of the Project Committee on Customary Law, Professor Nhlapo was instrumental in the passage of significant legislation in family law and in the empowerment of women and children, including securing legal recognition for marriages concluded under indigenous law.  He is the author of two books and has written and spoken extensively on issues of women's rights in family law and of cultural diversity under the South African Constitution.

Sandra Hodge Benjamin – representative of the Family Resource Center, Inc., a Virgin Islands non-profit organization providing shelter, counseling and opportunities to victims of domestic violence and other crimes. She worked at the Center for 10 years as a counselor and, as executive director, was in charge of outreach education about domestic and sexual violence awareness and prevention, conflict resolution, and self-esteem building.   She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology and her masters in counseling, guidance and development, from Long Island University. She recently left FRC to take a position as the territory’s first Survivor Outreach Coordinator for families of fallen V.I. soldiers.

Patricia D. Steele – judge of the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix. She is responsible for the disposition of all matters filed with the Family Division, including child support and visitation, domestic violence, custody, divorce, juvenile delinquency, abuse and neglect of children, mental commitments and probates.  Before her appointment to the bench in 1994, she worked in a private law firm and then for the V. I. Health Department.  Her undergraduate work was in sociology and anthropology at Southampton College of Long Island University; she earned her law degree at Howard University School of Law.

Audrey L. Thomas – judge of the Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, with responsibility for adjudicating all matters filed with the Family Division. A graduate of the University of the Virgin Islands, she taught English in the V.I. public school system before earning her law degree at Howard University, where her activities included serving as managing editor of the Howard Law Journal.  Before her appointment to the bench in 2000, she worked in a private law firm and then for 11 years as assistant U.S. Attorney in the Virgin Islands. She has been active in community outreach programs, including mentoring high school students and advising and preparing them for Moot Court competition.

In addition to a shared cash award of $500,000, recipients receive a medal of honor and a citation, which reads:

The 2009 Gruber Women’s Rights Prize is proudly presented to Leymah Roberta Gbowee, and the Women’s Legal Centre for two different but complementary kinds of activism:

Leymah Roberta Gbowee of Liberia, for helping to build peace in her homeland by mobilizing women in a resistance movement that was instrumental in finally bringing an end to the Liberian civil war, and for continuing to promote women-power in peace building; and

the Women’s Legal Centre of South Africa, for successfully challenging legal and cultural obstacles to women’s rights through the courts especially in the areas of inheritance and gender-based violence, and empowering women with free legal advice on the impact of court judgments in their favor.

Members of the committee that selected the 2009 Women's Rights Prize recipients:

• Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, The New School
• Pinar Ilkkaracan, Women for Women’s Human Rights – NEW WAYS
• Akua Kuenyehia, International Criminal Court
• Cecilia Medina Quiroga, University of Chile
• Thandabantu Nhlapo, University of Cape Town
• Geeta Rao Gupta, International Center for Research on Women
• Sakena Yacoobi, Afghan Institute of Learning

Laureates of the Gruber Foundation Women's Rights Prize:

2008: Ms. Yanar Mohammed, Ms. Sapana Pradhan Malla, and Dr. Nadera Shaloub-Kevorkian2007: Ms. Pinar Ilkkaracan, Women for Women’s Human Rights, and The Coalition for Sexual and Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies
2006: Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas (UNMG), Sweatshop Watch, and Judge Cecilia Medina Quiroga
2005: Shan Women’s Action Network and The Women’s League of Burma
2004: Professor Sakena Yacoobi and the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL)
2003: Judge Navanethem Pillay and Pro-Femmes Twese Hamwe

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The Gruber International Prize Program honors contemporary individuals in the fields of Cosmology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Justice and Women's Rights, whose groundbreaking work provides new models that inspire and enable fundamental shifts in knowledge and culture. The Selection Advisory Boards choose individuals whose contributions in their respective fields advance our knowledge, potentially have a profound impact on our lives, and, in the case of the Justice and Women's Rights Prizes, demonstrate courage and commitment in the face of significant obstacles.

The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation honors and encourages educational excellence, social justice and scientific achievements that better the human condition. For more information about Foundation guidelines and priorities, please go to: www.gruberprizes.org.

For more information on the 2009 Gruber Prizes, email media@gruberprizes.org or contact Bernetia Akin of the Gruber Foundation at +1 (340) 775-8035 or by mail 140 W 57^th St Suite 10C New York, NY 10019. Media materials and additional background information on the Gruber Prizes can be found at our online newsroom: http://www.gruberprizes.org/Press.php.