JUDGE RECEIVES PRIZE FOR DEFENDING WOMEN'S RIGHTS

December 12, 2003 – (Hirondelle News Agency - Lausanne) The former president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Judge Navanethem Pillay of South Africa, Wednesday received in New York the Women's Rights prize form the Peter Gruber Foundation.

Pillay will share the US $200.000 prize money with a Rwandan women's umbrella organization, Pro-Femme Twese Hamwe (for women, all together). Pillay was honoured for her efforts in promoting womens rights, in particular that of Rwandan survivors of genocide.

Navanethem Pillay, 62, was a judge at the ICTR from 1995 to 2003 and was its president for four years. She is now a judge at the International Criminal Court (ICC) based at The Hague (Netherlands).

While at the ICTR, Judge Pillay took part in rendering many judgments, including that against the former prime minister of the Rwandan interim government, Jean Kambanda and that of the hate media.

But what caught the biggest attention of women's rights activists was the judgment against a former mayor, Jean Paul Akayesu, where a precedent was set that defined rape as an institutionalised weapon of war and a crime of genocide if it was committed with the intention to destroy a particular ethnic group.

The organisers of the prize described Judge Pillay as "a hero for humanity and a special inspiration for women."

Pro-Femme Twese Hamwe is involved in rural development projects; health, and it helps widows and orphans of the genocide against Tutsis and massacres of members of the opposition in Rwanda. The Genocide claimed an estimated One million victims between April and July 1994. The Peter Gruber Foundation thus honoured the organisation for it's "leadership of grassroots women's organizations for their resilience and commitment to peace, reconciliation, and nation building."

The Peter Gruber Foundation is a philanthropic organisation based in the US Virgin Islands that started giving awards in different fields in 2000. This is the first time that the organisation has created an award for women's rights. The other existing awards are in the fields of cosmology, genetics, and justice.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200312150143.html