The Third Skin

(L to R) LEYMAH GBOWEE, TAWAKKUL KARMAN, ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF, NOBEL PEACE PRIZE-WINNERS: Only 12 women had ever received the Nobel peace prize. This year it was awarded to three. Each has risked everything to help women in countries where they are routinely ignored or violated. We made them all women of the year. Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female president, is credited with bringing peace to the formerly war-torn Liberia, while activist Gbowee led marches against the use of rape and child soldiers in the country’s civil war. The youngest ever peace prize winner, Karman, has held weekly protests against the Yemeni government since 2008, with members of her Women Journalists Without Chains organisation. And when the Arap spring hit Yemen, her arrest brought thousands into the streets to demand her release. The laureates’ message is clear – as Sirleaf said as she collected her prize: ‘My sisters, my daughters, my friends - find your voice’

 Photograph: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters