Tawakkol Karman was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and their right to full participation peace building process in Yemen. Karman was the first Yemeni, the first Arab woman, and the second Muslim woman to receive this honor, and at 32, was the youngest Nobel Prize Laureates to date. Karman is a mother of three as well as a human rights activist, journalist, politician, and the president of the organization Women Journalists Without Chains. She is a General Coordinator of the Peacful Revolutionary Youth Council in Yemen. Bold and outspoken, Karman has been imprisoned on a number of occasions for her pro-democracy, pro-human rights protests. Amongst Yemen’s Youth movement, she is known as “mother of the revolution”, “the iron woman”, and the Lady of the Arab Spring. TIME Magazine described her as a ‘Torchbearer of the Arab Spring’ and named her both one of the 100 most influential women defining the last century and one of the Most Rebellious Women in History. She was member of the High-Level Panel of eminent persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. She is now board member of the Facebook oversight board, and Nobel Women initiative, Karman continues to advocate against dictatorships, extremism and terrorism and takes an active role working to restore peace and political process in Yemen.
