The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 is to be divided in three equal parts between Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work. We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.

Acknowledging the role of women in world wide peace processes, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Committee has indeed made a powerful statement in support of peaceful activism, women’s rights and the absolute need for leadership presence and influence of women in today’s global arena.

While African and Middle Eastern countries struggle with tremendous abuses and challenges of civil and political rights, three outstanding women have been awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

From Liberia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and activist Leymah Gbowee, who heads the Women Peace and Security network, will share the almost 1.5 million award with Yemen activist and leader of the human rights advocacy group Women Journalists Without Chains, Tawakkul Karman.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

President Johnson Sirleaf, the only woman head of state elected through democratic process in all of Africa, has held her position since 2006 and is running for re-election this month. After two civil wars that lasted over two decades ended in 2003 a democratic leadership has been uneasily kept in the presence of U.N. peacekeeping forces.

Sirleaf, 72, married at 17, traveled to the U.S. with her husband and holds an economics degree from Harvard. She has held positions at the World Bank, served as Minister of Finance in Liberia until the military coup in 1980, then prominate positions at private institutions until she first ran for president in 1997. She then held positions at the United nations until winning the Presidential election in 2005. Sirleaf has been awarded over a dozen humanitarian and academic awards and honorary degrees.

Leyman Gbowee

Leymah Gbowee was instrumental in bringing an end to the second civil war in Liberia by organizing women of Christian and Muslim faiths to pray, sing and peacefully demonstrate together through sit-ins and daily marches. Additionally, the women arranged sex strikes to get husbands to support their peaceful movement - refusing sex until the fighting subsided proved to be a useful means to the end. The group was also successful in getting then President Charles Taylor to participate in peace talks and negotiate with rebel forces. Trained as a trauma counselor in Virginia and a mother of six, Gbowee counseled child soldiers who had been trained to fight and kill in Taylor’s Liberian army and became convinced that it would be up to mothers to make a difference. “With your society as upside down - we turned it upright!” Thousands of women wearing white shirts are still petitioning successfully to other African governments for peace. Now based in Ghana, Gbowee is general director for Women Peace and Security Network Africa.

Tawakkul Karman