All the women who have won the Nobel Peace Prize—and why their role is so important

“For her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”

Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi is vice president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which is headed by fellow laureate Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded in 2003. Mohammadi has spent more than two decades fighting for women's rights and through her work has helped imprisoned activists, campaigned against the death penalty and been a staunch critic of the Iranian regime's use of torture and sexual violence in prisons. She has been arrested numerous times and sentenced to prison on various charges. She is currently serving in Iran's notorious Evin Prison where she has been since 2021, joining several other laureates who were awarded while under arrest when she was named 2023 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“For their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”

The Philippines' first Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Maria Ressa is a journalist and co-founder and CEO of Rappler, the Philippines' leading digital media company, which she established in 2012. She has been a fierce defender of freedom of expression, particularly under President Rodrigo Duterte who she stood up against, exposing his abuse of power and use of violence, particularly in his war on drugs, through her work. 

See also: Maria Ressa on Responsible Journalism, Democracy, Purpose—and Facebook

“For their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”

Nadia Murad is a member of the Yazidi religious minority. In 2014, at the age of 21, after most of her family had been murdered, Murad was abducted and held as a sex slave as part of the Islamic State's Yazidi genocide. Murad was able to escape to Germany in 2015, where she chose to share her story—later also recounting it for her autobiography The Last Girl, published in 2017—in the hope that it would not only see her abusers held accountable, but prevent other girls and young women from becoming victims of sexual violence in war. In 2016, she became the UN's first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking, going on to establish her non-profit Nadia's Initiative advocating for survivors of sexual violence in 2018.

“For their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education”

"I truly believe the only way we can create global peace is through not only educating our minds, but our hearts and our souls," said Pakistani education activist Malala Yousafzai. Awarded at the age of 17, Yousafzai is the youngest peace laureate, but she had already started her education activism—public speaking and blogging—several years before when the Taliban had taken control and started denying girls their right to education. An increasing public profile put a target on Yousafzai's back. One day, on her way home from school when she was just 15 years old, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman. She recovered after extensive medical treatment and the year after her shooting, in 2013, she established the Malala Fund, dedicated to ensuring girls have a safe and quality education and an opportunity to choose their future. 

See also: Malala Yousafzai debuts as producer with ‘The Last of the Sea Women’, a heartwarming homage to the incredible haenyeo, South Korea's female freedivers

“For their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work”

The 2011 Prize was awarded jointly to Tawakkol Karman, a Yemeni journalist and the founder of Women Journalists without Chains, an NGO committed to protecting freedom of expression, who stood up against President Saleh's regime and who, during the Arab Spring in 2011, drove reconciliation efforts; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first democratically elected female head of state in Africa, who served as President of Liberia from 2006 to 2018 and who uplifted many other women with her; and Leymah Gbowee, who not only played a key role in mobilising Liberian women to vote Sirleaf into power in 2005, but prior to that had worked with Sirleaf to bring about an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003, which laid the foundations for peaceful, free elections in 2005. 

“For her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace”

The first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Kenyan Wangari Maathai was an activist and also the founder, in 1977, of the Green Belt Movement, an initiative to address deforestation by encouraging women to plant trees, but which also fostered forest conservation, drove education and empowered women. It was an initiative that would spread to many other African countries and that continues to have global impact. Maathai was a co-founder of the Nobel Women's Initiative, alongside laureates Shirin Ebadi, Rigoberta Menchú, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams, which was established in 2006 to “amplify the voices and support the world of global women's peace, justice and equality movements”. She passed away in 2011 after a battle with ovarian cancer. 

“For her efforts for democracy and human rights. She has focused especially on the struggle for the rights of women and children”

One of Iran's first female judges, lawyer Shirin Ebadi has long been a fierce advocate for the rights of women, children and refugees, going on to establish the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran in 2001. Even when she was dismissed from her post as a judge in 1979 following President Khomeini's revolution, and was barred from practising law, and then, in 2000, was arrested and imprisoned for criticism of the regime, she found ways to campaign for rights, and found organisation to raise rights issues. She has also been a strong proponent for separating religion and state. Ebadi is a co-founder of the Nobel Women's Initiative.

“For their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines”

“The landmine is eternally prepared to take victims. In common parlance, it is the perfect soldier, the "eternal sentry." The war ends, the landmine goes on killing,” said Jody Williams. The activist encountered landmines while undertaking aid work in El Salvador, personally supporting children who had lost limbs due to landmines by providing them with prosthetics. This drove her to launch the International Campaign to Ban Landmines with the goal of achieving an international treaty banning anti-personnel mines, which she achieved with the Ottawa Treaty in 1997. Williams is a co-founder of the Nobel Women's Initiative.

“For her struggle for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples”

Guatemalan human rights activist Rigoberta Menchú was from a poor Indigenous family in rural Guatemala and experienced first-hand the violence of the country's civil war when several members of her own family were killed. A human rights activist from a young age, she fled to Mexico where she continued to drive resistance and press for Indigenous rights. A peace agreement would eventually be signed in 1996. Menchú went on to become a UN Ambassador for indigenous peoples, and later ran for president of Guatemala. She is a co-founder of the Nobel Women's Initiative.

“For her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights”

Another laureate who was under arrest at the time they were awarded, Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi co-founded the National League for Democracy in 1988 and was actively involved in the democracy movement against Burma's ruling military junta. As a result of her political opposition, she became a target for the regime and was arrested in 1989. In 1990, her party won a clear victory, but the generals resisted her taking power, keeping Suu Kyi under house arrest where she remained for 15 of the 21 years of her arrest until she was released in 2010. The youngest daughter of Aung San, Myanmar's “Father of the Nation”, Suu Kyi became State Counsellor of Myanmar, equivalent to its head of government, in 2016, following her party's victory in the 2015 elections. Despite her achievements in the democratisation of Myanmar, Suu Kyi has been criticised for her handling of the Rohingya crisis. In 2021, after a military coup, Suu Kyi was arrested again and sentenced to imprisonment on bogus charges.

“For their work for disarmament and nuclear and weapon-free zones”

Swedish sociologist, diplomat and writer, Alva Myrdal held a number of distinguished roles, both in the UN and at UNESCO, and as Swedish Ambassador to India. She was also a women's rights advocate, co-writing the book Women's Two Roles: Home and Work in 1958 and continuously campaigning to support women so they could be their best selves at work and in the home. She went on to represent Sweden as government minister in charge of disarmament and played an active role in persuading the US and the USSR to disarm and in proposing the establishment of nuclear weapons-free zones in Europe.

“For her work for bringing help to suffering humanity”

“A life not lived for others is not a life,” said Mother Teresa. The Catholic nun, who was of Albanian-Indian descent, certainly devoted her life to others. As the founder of the Missionaries of Charity sisterhood, which she founded to serve “the poorest of the poor” in Calcutta, India, she worked to support and care for orphans, lepers, and those dying from HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, among many others not limited to India. While her work has not been without criticism, in 2016 she was canonised by Pope Francis. 

“For the courageous efforts in founding a movement to put an end to the violent conflict in Northern Ireland”

“If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence, here and now, in the present,” said Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who along with Betty Williams co-founded the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed the Community of Peace People), a nonviolent grassroots movement focused on protest marches and confidence-building measures with a goal of ending the Troubles—the violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics—in Northern Ireland.

“For her lifelong work for the cause of peace”

American Emily Greene Balch dedicated her life to disarmament and peace, but like 1931 laureate Jane Addams, who she worked alongside during World War I to try to stop the war, she was regarded as a dangerous radical by the US. In 1935, she became the head of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which Addams had founded, and was vocal in her warnings against fascism and the extreme dangers posed by Hitler and Mussolini.

“For their assiduous effort to revive the ideal of peace and to rekindle the spirit of peace in their own nation and in the whole of mankind”

American sociologist Jane Addams was the founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915, and spent many years working on disarmament and directly involved in concluding peace agreements, particularly during World War I, during which time her outrage and activism at the US joining the war meant she was labelled a radical and a risk to national security.

“for her audacity to oppose the horrors of war”

Novelist and pacifist Bertha von Suttner was the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 (and the second Nobel laureate after Marie Curie in 1903), having been nominated every year since the prize was launched in 1901. She was the author of the influential 1889 anti-war book Lay Down Your Arms and would become a leader of the international peace movement, later founding the Austrian Peace Society. Von Suttner was also a close friend of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, and many believe she was instrumental in the prize's establishment.

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