Leymah Gbowee

Described as a ‘warrior who fights with no weapons’^[1] Leymah Gbowee is one of three female winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen. Born in Liberia in 1972, she experienced the ravages of two civil wars which ripped apart her native country between 1989 and 2003. Trained as a social worker, she worked in trauma healing and in the rehabilitation of ex-child soldiers of Charles Taylor’s army^[2], as well as with girls and women raped by militia men^[3].

Leymah was involved with the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) from its inception in 2001. The organisation builds women’s capacity to enhance their roles in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction, as well as gender mainstreaming in conflict prevention frameworks, under the umbrella of the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP).

Leymah was appointed coordinator of the Liberian Women’s Initiative and began campaigning with colleagues at mosques, churches and markets, rallying women to speak out for peace and encouraging them to take a stance against the violence being perpetrated in Liberia.

She worked to unite Muslim and Christian women to protest together and became the inspirational leader and spokesperson for Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. What began as gatherings in Monrovia with prayers and songs, eventually led to daily non-violent demonstrations and sit-ins. Their protests included the threat of a sex strike in an attempt to bring warring men to their senses by sending the message that they cannot go out and kill mothers and daughters and come home to expect sex. If little else, the protest helped draw attention to their demands. “The group is most remembered for its long peace protests on a football field and government buildings in Monrovia. Dressed in their white- T-shirts, they would pray and sing songs of hope in the hot sun and the heavy rain… armed with nothing but their sisterhood” ^[4].

Finally, in April 2003, Taylor granted a hearing with the women. With more than 2,000 women amassed outside his mansion, Leymah addressed him with their message: “We are tired of war. We are tired of running. We are tired of begging for bulgur wheat. We are tired of our children being raped. We are now taking this stand, to secure the future of our children. Because we believe, as custodians of society, tomorrow our children will ask us, "Mama, what was your role during the crisis?"^[5]

Incredibly, the women extracted a promise from Taylor to attend peace talks in Ghana with rebels. But the women did not leave it at that; they followed Taylor and the rebel leaders to Accra and made their presence known at the peace talks. As they dragged on without making progress and violence continuing at home, the women took decisive action and stormed the building, linked arms and held the talks ‘hostage’ until a peace agreement was reached. The act had the effect of changing the tone of the meetings to one of seriousness and a peace agreement was reached weeks later.

The women were treated as ‘national heroes’ and the movement later helped ensure the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as Africa’s first female president in 2005.

Following the agreement, Leymah understood the enormity of the impact of war on Liberian society: “A whole generation of young men had no idea who they were without a gun in their hands. Several generations of women were widowed, had been raped, seen their daughters and mothers raped, and their children kill and be killed. Neighbours had turned against neighbours; young people had lost hope, and old people, everything they had painstakingly earned. To a person, we were traumatized."^[6]

Through WIPNET, she has provided leadership and direction to women peace builders across Liberia, promoting collaborative conflict prevention and peacebuilding initiatives amongst community based women’s groups and organizations. She has also developed and facilitated workshops on trauma counselling, conflict resolution and peacebuilding, and has served as the Commissioner-designate for the Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission, as well as a presenter for UNIFEM’s “Women and the DDRR (Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration and Repatriation) Process” at the UN.^[7]

Critical of the way that UN agencies in Liberia ignored or overlooked the capacity and opinions of local people in their involvement in post-conflict Liberia, she emphasises that women should not be looked upon as victims but as courageous, resourceful survivors.^[8] Leymah’s recent work has focused on capacity building, empowering African women to participate actively at all levels of conflict prevention, and peacebuilding.

Wishing to break from WANEP, Gbowee and her WIPNET colleagues, Thelma Ekiyor and Ecoma Alaga, founded the Women Peace and Security Network- Africa (WIPSEN – Africa) in 2006; a women-focused, women-led, pan-African NGO based in Ghana. WIPSEN works at government level to challenge notions that conflict and peacebuilding are a man’s domain, ensuring a gendered approach to peace and security mechanisms, as well as increasing participation of women parliamentarians in security discussions, strengthening women’s capacities to engage in electoral processes, and educating women in their civil and voting rights. At grassroots level, their work involves capacity building for women to ensure their participation in all stages of conflict early warning systems and peace talks, raising awareness and giving a voice to women’s requirements in security issues. They also work in post-conflict recovery; facilitating women’s access to transitional justice processes, ensuring women’s involvement in DDRR processes and providing an outreach programme to displaced women. Their partners and affiliates range from local CBOs to governments and regional bodies, and their work so far incorporates Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote D’Ivoire.

Leymah has won numerous awards for peace over the past few years, the most prestigious being the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in October. Until now only 12 out of 97 Laureates have been women. In its citation, the Nobel Committee said she had been chosen because she “mobilised and organised women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women's participation in elections. She has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war”^[9].

Leymah is deeply spiritual and her faith has given her hope at a time when she desperately needed it. She advises that anyone is capable of rivalling her achievements as long as they take the initiative to make a change:

“Don't wait for a Gandhi, don't wait for a King, don't wait for a Mandela. You are your own Mandela, you are your own Gandhi, you are your own King.”^[10]