"My story is the struggle of every young woman who has survived conflict"-Leymah Gbowee
What motivated the Nobel Prize Winner to fight for peace in Libeira.
Apuurva Sridharan, last updated on October 13, 2011 at 15:20 IST
“My story is the struggle of every young woman who has lived and survived conflict. The beauty of it, to me, is that it can be read as a lesson, or a test, or an encouragement that one can go through all of these things and still come out sane.”
These inspiring words are excerpts of a book “Mighty Be Our Powers”, which is a memoir of the Liberian Social Activist, Leymah Gbowee. She, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman President of Liberia and Tawakkul Karman, a Yemeni journalist, won the 2011 Nobel Peace prize on October 7.
Gbowee, a fiery and determined woman, was born in central Liberia and at the age of 17, and moved to Monrovia, when the First Liberian War erupted. She was a trained trauma counsellor, and started working with the ex-soldiers of the then President, Charles Taylor. She went on to become the spokesperson for a women’s group and started the protest for peace, concluding that "if any changes were to be made in society it had to be by the mothers.”
“After working with the women in Liberia for a number of years, I realized that peace building, peace activism, and women’s role in that process was where I wanted to be. It was a calling for me.” Leymah Gbowee said in her interview with The Christian Science Monitor. Her journey of fighting for peace began in a dust-ridden street of Monrovia, where young women, dressed in white (symbolising peace) were praying and singing for peace and against the Second Liberian Civil War.
When the war started in 2002, Liberia had endured more than ten years of strife. The women, who were losing their men to violence, were tired of fighting. They were tired of raising their children, only to see that they were being stolen to be used as soldiers. They were also tired of being raped. That is how Gbowee started the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace.
Thousands of women staged protests against the war, demanding peace. When they sat down on the streets of Monrovia, Taylor’s convoy would pass by them every day. Yet they risked their lives, knowing that his men could simply open fire at them. They also protested by threatening to go on sex strike, i.e. refrain from having sex, with their partners till peace was restored. They kept protesting till Taylor agreed to meet them and promised that there would be peace talks between the warring parties.
Her strength was evident, when, in 2003, she led more than 100 women into the Monrovia’s City Hall, demanding an end to the war, saying, “We, the women of Liberia, will no more allow ourselves to be raped, abused, misused, maimed and killed. Our children and grandchildren will not be used as killing machines and sex slaves!"
Their movement brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. This, in turn, led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, making it the first African nation to have a woman President.
Her book, “Mighty Be Our Powers” was published and released in October 2011. In addition, she has played a central character in the documentary called “Pray the Devil back to Hell”.