2003 Africa Prize Laureates Announced

Announcing the 2003 laureates

September 8, 2003: Two women legal activists who are respected for their bold effective action for women’s rights will receive the 2003 Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger, The Hunger Project announced today.

Meaza Ashenafi established Ethiopia’s leading women’s legal aid, education, and policy reform organization in 1995 - the Ethiopian Women Lawyers’ Association (EWLA).

Ms. Ashenafi’s organization has led the charge for women’s rights across the political spectrum and across the nation. She has championed women’s rights in the areas of domestic violence, sexual abuse, family, economic and land rights.

EWLA engages in public education, research and law reform advocacy, and free legal aid to women who are victims of injustice. It has twice weekly radio broadcasts on women’s issues; two publications; a resource center for information on legal and women’s issues; a legal aid program which handled 3,917 cases in 2000; a task force on violence against women; and programs related to civil service reform, political participation of women, and networking.

Born of an illiterate mother and a civil servant father in a small town near the Sudan border, she received her LBB degree from Addis Ababa University and was qualified as a lawyer in 1986. Her teachers used to say “Oh, you’re so smart and have so much potential; it’s too bad you’re not a boy.”

Prior to founding EWLA, Meaza Asenhafi was a legal advisor to the Constitution Commission of Ethiopia’s transition government. Ms. Ashenafi was responsible for advising the Commission, preparing position papers for the Commission’s human rights panel and producing the first drafts of the constitution’s articles on the rights of women and children.

Sara Longwe of Zambia is a grassroots mobilizer, writer and gender consultant. She is the author of the "Longwe Framework for Gender Analysis" which is used internationally to promoting focus on gender issues in development program. She has pioneered the use of international human rights laws in the fight for women's rights in domestic courts.

She faced her first battle, as a young secondary school teacher, when the government refused to give her maternity leave, despite Zambia's ratification of an ILO convention which required 90 days maternity leave. This led to her becoming a prime mover in a lobby group that successfully pressed government to introduce, in 1974, maternity leave in the teaching service.

Her personal experiences of gender discrimination broadened into political campaigns and legal battles. In 1984 she was a founding member of the Zambia Association of Research and Development, formed to reveal, analyze and take action on the various forms of discrimination against women. It was this Association which was instrumental in pushing the government to ratify CEDAW: the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1985.

In 1992 she won a landmark battle against the Lusaka Intercontinental Hotel, which had refused to admit her on the grounds that she was not accompanied by a man. The High Court judge justified his ruling against the hotel partly on the basis that the government had ratified CEDAW.

Last month Ms Longwe stepped down after four years as chairperson of FEMNET, the African Women's Development and Communication Network. Established in 1988, FEMNET aims to strengthen the role African NGOs in focusing on women's rights issues, and in collaborating on major regional issues such as female genital mutilation. FEMNET runs programs in advocacy, mobilization, communications, and a Network of Men Against Gender-Based Violence. FEMNET was the main organizer of the African regional preparatory meeting for the 1995 Beijing Conference.

The Africa Prize, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize for Africa”, will be awarded at a ceremony in New York on Saturday, October 11, 2003. The laureates receive a sculpture by Takenobu Igarashi and US$50,000 each to continue their work for the well-being of Africa’s people. The Prize was established in 1987 as a strategic intervention to call forth effective leadership committed to the well-being of Africa’s people. Past laureates include heads of state such as Nelson Mandela, as well as educators, scientists, women’s activists and grassroots organizers.

The Africa Prize is awarded by The Hunger Project, a global, non-profit, strategic organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger. In more than 5,000 villages of Asia, Africa and Latin America, The Hunger Project empowers grassroots people to achieve lasting progress in health, education, nutrition and family incomes.

More details about the Prize, the laureates and The Hunger Project are available at www.thp.org.

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