- hello everyone, i'm excitedto be back to see you again. we have a differentset up, as you can see. so i feel a little bit like i don't know, oprah.(laughter) in any case, i hope everyoneenjoyed this morning.
Rabobank Business Online Banking, for us, in our office, thatis the highlight of the year because we talk aboutthese women for so long and we go through a long process where they're nominated by their posts
and we read their bios andwe talk to them on the phone. and then to actually see them in person and to see them all togetheris such a treat for us. so i'm glad that all of yougot to see that as well. today, because it's the10th year anniversary we're doing something a little different. we added on thisafternoon, and we did that because we found thatthese women are so amazing, but we were the only onesgetting to hear their stories.
so we wanted to changethat and make it possible for you to hear fromthem directly, as well. so we have some amazingpanels this afternoon. they're gonna be absolutely terrific. and we have some special guests. we have admiral howard, who's amazing. you'll hear from her. i just spent some time with her upstairs. and then the vice president will be here
to close out at the end of the day. so for now, i'm going to introduce... i have one other thingi'm supposed to tell you which is if you're tweeting,you should use #womenofcourage. did my duty on that one. we're now gonna do a spark talk with latifa, who was introduced earlier. and the secretary spoke about her. she is our awardee from france.
he met with her yesterday and she told this incrediblestory of losing her son, and how at the end ofhis life he stood strong. and since then, she'stried to stand strong and try to bring her community together and find some positive outof the terrible tragedy that happened in her family. as a mother, it was a heartbreaking story for me to hear, as well, but i saw that
she was such an unbelievablycourageous woman and was determined to do something that would help all of us. so i'd like to bring her out right now. (applause) - [voiceover] ladies andgentlemen, good afternoon. madam ambassador, mr. secretary of state. i'm very proud and deeplyhonored to be with you today. i received this prize
and i have much courageto continue my fight. that's why i created this association. yes, indeed, i lost myson on march 11, 2012. he was assassinated by mohamed merah. so i created this group40 days after his death. it was most important for me instead of wallowing into my suffering, i had to remain standing. because my son, he...
standing up, so i also stand up in order to help all these young people who are left alone, disenfranchised. these kids who have no love. who are completely ignorant. and they don't know their own identity. so i created this group to support, to help them, their parents, to support them with their education.
with love and support. this is a worldwide situation. the mother is worldwide, the mother is she who can provide an opportunity to her children. so the presence of a mother and a father is the worldwide issue for a child. and that is what i am fighting for today. to give an opportunity
to these young people to be loved. to be supported, to befollowed, monitored. because if i look at the life of mohamed merah, he received no love. he lacked the presence of his parents. he was left to his own devices. he went to jail, and when he left jail, he left jail moredangerous than he came in. he killed five people gratuitously.
and he caused sufferingto all these families. he left behind terrorism and everything we're experiencing today. my struggle is the struggle of a mother. a wounded mother, a suffering mother. but i will not give up because i'm living for my son. for his memory, and to remember this youth that needs this help.
i would like to visit schools, prisons. i started projects, i bring young people to experience otherpeople's civilizations. i brought children to israel. that was very important for me, to know other civilizations. to be with other religions, side by side. to see a jew, who is muslim, who is jewish, who is christian.
to approach these ties very closely. and that's what brings me stregnth for this lost youth today. i think that the youth lacks knowledge. they lack education, they lack love. and love today... if there's a void, you cannot give anything else to this generation. so each mother, eachfather it is their duty
to provide an opportunityfor their children. that is why i'm leading this struggle, ladies and gentlemen, because there is the deepsuffering inside my heart. i lost a son who was 30 years old. a son who was serving his country. he was in the army for 10 years. he had so many projects in front of him. but mohamed merah, he stole it away.
that is why i'm continuingthis struggle today. it is very important for me. thank you very much. - [voiceover] pleasewelcome our first panel, women's leadership andpolitical participation: standing up for what's right. - good afternoon. what an honor it is to be here. i'm mary jordan,
and i'm a correspondentfor the washington post. and for 14 of those yearsi worked around the world. and i've written out of 40 countries. and i'm sad to say thatthere was no country i visited where women did notsuffer from unequal treatment. it was simply a matter of degree. and that's true all around the world. so i'm particularly honored and excited to be with all theseexceptional women today.
and i'm just gonna quickly introduce them. you heard secretary kerry this morning. but right next to me is agnes osztolykan, she was a member of parliament in hungary. and not only was she a minority in that, she's gonna tell you about that. but she was a minority within a minority because she's a member of the roma group, which suffers from enormous discrimination
not just in hungary, but around the world. welcome, agnes. and we have thelma aldana, who's the attorney general of guatemala. fighting corruption day in and day out at the highest level of government. and we also have nihal najali al-awlaqi from yemen. she is the minister of legal affairs in a country where thereare almost no women,
less than 1% of parliament are females. and she's gonna talk about what it's like to be in the cabinet of the prime minister when you're traveling in armored cars and facing danger every day. and we also have debrabaptist-estrada from belize. for some reason, and we'll talk about why, because i don't get it,they don't like women in the customs department and immigration.
a place rife with corruption. so she's a corruption buster at their department of immigration. so welcome. and i'm gonna start with nihal, because i'm just fascinated. first of all, welcome. what's it like to be a woman and head of legal affairs in a country
in more chaos than justabout any other country? it's a difficult time. can you just walk usthrough what you do at work? i think so. it should... - thank you for this question. indeed, working in a society like yemen has a lot of danger. and the yemeni women
confront these difficultiesmuch more than men. of course, anyone whoworks in the public sphere and who works in decisionmaking positions, especially thosestruggling for real change in the country, are subject to danger. women suffer a lot more than men under these conditions,but generally speaking there is protection provided for those who work in the public sphere.
i believe that this is considered to be one of the challenges facing yemeni women, that is, they work under a veryunstable political climate, and a very difficult security situation which affects performance and also affects their work. but this is a majorchallenge that i personally face, and all otheryemeni women face as well.
those women who carry the principles of the need to changeand create a new yemen based on stability and peace and democracy, and theprotection of human rights. and to achieve also equalitybetween the two genders. (speaking arabic) i did not hear the question. - [mary] you must be an inspiration. and i'm wondering, when they see.
there's three of the 35 members of the cabinet are women. - [voiceover] of course, this is is general, gives a feeling of frustration and makes women feel that until now they have not achievedtheir natural rights. especially yemeni women, who represent more than50% of the population.
women feel that their done injustice and discriminated against, but this feeling does not prevent women from working hard and endeavoring. there are two or three women in the public sphere is better than none. and this is a positive development and gives them a feeling that in spite of the difficulties,
they have to work harder and with their determination, they will be able to double this number. - of the gender inequality indexes, yemen ranks, if youpick any 100 countries, it is pretty much last on the scale. what is the first most achievable success? what's the good news in yemen, what's the first breakthroughs
that some women are getting that you see on the horizonas good news for women? - [voiceover] yes, in general, yemeni women are the first in the arab world and the women in the third world who have struggled to achieve the rights. yemeni women, whether inthe south or the north before the unity ofyemen, managed to achieve
several rights, and consolidate them. and today we find yemeni women in all aspects of public life, in the public sphere. we also find them as ministers, ambassadors, and they have also received nobel prizes andother international awards. of course, women occupy very important decision-making positions.
they are also in the private sphere. they are workers, they are traders, businesswomen. so we see that there is a women movement in yemen that is effective and has been in operationfor a very long time. this work, until now, has not been as required. in light of the difficultiesthat women face,
we're talking aboutthe political struggles and also the economic situations which impose themselves on the women and affect their work. - don't like what you're doing and you travel in an armored car. why is it that your job is so dangerous? - [voiceover] yes, of course the danger comes from the dangerous
type of work that i'm doing. i worked recently in thenational dialogue conference. and this is the constituent assembly trying to establish a new federal yemen. and i also worked on theconstitution drafting committee, which also translated all the output of the national dialogueinto actual constitutions. and this work focuses on transforming yemen into a federation.
also the output of this dialogue involved many changes in yemen, whether at the legal level. stipulations of equalitybetween men and women and other legal rightsfor women and minor girls. and i'm also very keen to translate these to be part of the constitution. so this is a very difficult task in a society that has radical orientations
and ideas that oppose suchprinciples and values. - i have such short time today. i could listen to you all day long. but basically, when you try to change the status quo, it's not easy. reforming the system is not easy. and we're gonna come back to you later to talk about the rolewomen have in peacemaking and why women should beat the table peacemaking.
i'm gonna come to agnes here from hungary, who won this award several years ago. she was in parliament in hungary and i want her to tell you thename of her political party. this might be a name that could be useful in other countries. say, maybe here. the name of her party ispolitics can be different. that is the name of theparty, which fascinates me.
it was founded in 2009, and she was a womanworking within the system. i just want to talk to you about what was it like to sit in parliament right next to people who weretelling you that roma people, saying racist thingsabout roma men and women? - of course, it was not so easy to hear this kind of hate speech used in the parliament every day.
but my feeling was thatthis is my challenge, to give them a right answerfor their hate speeches. and i took, between 2010 and 2014, more than 200 speeches inthe hungarian parliament. and i think this was my role. to show the racist people that my minority is able to do something, able to be a politician andable to be a profession. - women's participation in politics
is an issue in most countries. you decided to leave. why did you decide to leave parliament and now work outside of parliament? - it's a very strange thing. when i started my work as a member of the hungarian parliament, one of my friends told me that, "i think your main taskis now to be a woman,
"not to be a man in thehungarian parliament." when i started my work, i had several very strongand aggressive speeches with the other politicians,with the other men. and later on, i'm thinking a lot and i realized that if i'm aggressive as a man in politics, it'sreally not successful. if i use my soul, if iuse my women behavior, it will be much easierto achieve my goals.
- why is it important to have more women in the hungarian parliament, and i could ask this inany country in the world. but why do you see-- - i think it's so important not only in hungary,but the other countries. because women can give atotally different voice. totally differentfeelings to the politics. and in that world, when the hate speeches
and the terrorism and the extremism is existing in the world, it's very important, in my point of view, to show that the women can take forward the word and can give a very good answers and very kind behavior in the politics. - a different perspective. now thelma, in guatemala,what's it like to be the only female judgeon the supreme court?
- [voiceover] in guatemala, as in many other countries in the world, we have a patriarchal culture. and the difference between other countries and guatemala is that that culture is very deep rooted in the history, and has made guatemalan women invisible. and they use violence as a mechanism to make them understandwho rules in that society.
and they use femicide,or the killing of women as the way of expressingviolence against women. and within that context, it's not easy to reach higher standards in the court. we were 13 members, i was the only woman. but my colleagues knew that i was not going to accept any discrimination. i knew my rights, and iwas going to use them. so i was part to work
in a very harmonious work. - members on the court, butit was the other members that elected you aspresident, is that right? you were the presiding judge? so that says something aboutpeacemaking on a court. also, why is it that there was the need to have special courts for crimes against women? if women are murdered,
why wouldn't that just be for anybody? man or woman, a regular court. why did you need the special courts? - [voiceover] many years ago, i started my career asa lawyer in family court in a place very far away from the capital. and i saw how women,especially indigenous women, they went to the court asking for help. they had been hit by their husbands,
by their live-in partners, and my colleagues said, "well, i don't havetime to delve into this. "i have things more important to do. "go back to your husband,take care of your husband. "do what you have to doso nobody will hit you." that was the answer given by the court to the women. so from then on, irealized how urgent it was
to have a specialized court for women. - congratulations for all you're doing. domestic violence is a rife problem right around the world.(applause) and absolutely right, that people are just blind to it. what's the difference,what's the big deal? you need more women to scream that it really does make a difference.
so congratulations for all you're doing. let's just move on to belize for a second where we have the corruption buster here. debra worked at the international airport. she had people working under her, all men. in a place where it was pretty easy, because everybody was offering you bribes. bribes to let people throughthat shouldn't go through. bribes to let things,merchandise go through.
and you did such a good job there that they now sent you tothe border with mexico. so debra, why is it that women are not as corruptible as men? there have been studies done that women don't takeas many bribes as men. why is that? - i believe that women don't take bribes as much as men
because of the feeling of motherhood. for instance, a womanwould not take a bribe to facilitate the flow of children. mothers, from a woman's perspective, the woman takes ownership. not to say that men are different. but women are more family oriented, they take ownership of the situation. and therefore, i don't think
that women are as easily corruptible as-- - and it's when the old boy network, or the network is always how it's done. and there's only oneor two women in there, they also may have a differentperspective that way. one of the big challenges in immigration is that they are sendingchildren alone, right? that's one of the things that people are bribing their way through.
and also sex slaves. i suppose women wouldhave a particular eye for watching the horror of that and not just lining their pockets. what advice do you give? you have have three daughters, right? - yes, absolutely. - how will their lives be different? they're in their 20s.
what kind of challenge, do you see that things are improving? - absolutely. because if you empower your children by way of giving them an education, then that can change the status quo. if you educate your children enough for them to make decisions, proper decisions, thenthey can go a long way.
- so what is the next challenge? let's go down the row andtalk briefly in each country. if the goal is more women represented in politics in the national stage. and just to be, in general, included, whether it's in theimmigration department, or in parliament, or in the supreme court. what do you think is agood remedy for this? when you go back there, whatare you going to be working on?
- going back home, i plan to continue to work with the law to make amendments, to increase penalties with respect to violators. continue to-- - and how important is it, we were talking about raising wages. i lived in mexico for five years and the police department,
every single one of them said, "if we would just get paid more, "we wouldn't ask you." as they did for me many times, for $10 when they stopped you even if you didn't do anything wrong. how important is raising wages? - yes, that is very important. and also, like i'vesaid on many occasions,
where an officer managesto arrest a situation, i am of the opinion that ifthat officer is compensated. for instance, i have spoken to customs agents from the united states and they're saying if they make a bust, they are given a percentage of the value. - [mary] oh, interesting. - yes, a percentage. so it's an incentive
for them to do better. for them to want to continue the work that they're doing. - they do that on wall street, right? you get a percentage of everything. it's interesting, and there'ssome competitive people here. - if you compensate people according to the job that they're doing, then they will be incorruptible.
because they would not want to lean towards the other incentives that might cause them to be influenced. so if wages are on par withthe work that you're doing, then persons might just decide to continue to do the positivework that they're doing. - very briefly, youwere telling me a story. when you were going for your job, did anyone take noticethat you were a female?
what was your experience when you went to your job interview? - absolutely, i recalledone member of the panel of the persons doing theinterview for the job, one of them said to me, "do you know that youmight at some point in time "be required to board vessels "and to go onboard these big oil tankers." because at the ports of entry,
we're also required to board vessels as a part of the boarding party to clear the vessels into port. - [mary] and why did he think that was a problem for women? - because he's telling me, "do you know you're requiredto do certain things "by climbing up a jacob ladder?" because the immigration office
was primarily male dominated-- - did he think you were wearing a skirt? why can't you climb up a ladder? (laughter) - he assumed that because i'm a woman i would not be able to do it. but my response to him was, "if a man can do it, certainly "i as a woman will beable to do it as well.
"and maybe even do it better."- [mary] i have no doubt about that.(laughter) and nihal, has that happened to you? that somebody says you're a woman, why are you running thelegal affairs department? has anyone asked you whyyou're not at home cooking? (chuckles) - [voiceover] only by a few people who yemeni society looks upon
as extremists and backward. they're radical. but very rarely i would hear something like that in our society. - what makes you be someone who's breaking barriersin yemen for women? nihal? - [voiceover] i am a normal woman. i'm just like all other women.
but i have a strongfeeling about challenges. i am not afraid aboutanything and i'm not deterred. i am ambitious and i'm determined to achieve and realize my convictions. and i feel that the will alone is what creates miracles. and as long as we havestrong determination, we will be able to achieve anything, even if it's a miracle.
- and thelma, what advice, you've been on the supreme court. now you're attorney general. what advice do you have for young guatemalan women? - [voiceover] i would say to take advantage ofthe education, to work. and they should teach their daughters and men and boys,
always remember equity and equality. - equity. agnes, this is the 10thanniversary of this award. you were here before, webrought some of the alum back. what has the award meant for you, and what does it mean when you bring in all these determined people from every corner of the world and put them in this room?
what's the best use of that? - i was so happy and so proud that i got this award in 2011. i feel this award is notspeaking only about me. this award is for minority. sometimes it's not so easyto be a courageous woman. sometimes my feeling is i'm so tired and let's look someone elsewho can continue my work. but it's not easy to give it up.
and i heard yesterday a verygood answer, a very good sentence from the ladieshere from united states. i told a story for them aboutin the hungarian parliament a lot of men always told us, politicians, "for the women, the place is at home. "and in the kitchen." and when i told it the ladies told me here in washington, that we have a same sentence.
the woman's place is house and the senate. so i will bring(applause) this sentence with me home. thank you so much. - well i couldn't be morehonored to be with this. as you say, it's not soeasy to be courageous. i'm lucky to have talked to you. you all have similar traits. you all work all the time,
up against all odds, andyou're all super determined. and i'm delighted, and congratulations. - one of the great things about my job, and there are many great things, is i get to travel around and meet women like thiseverywhere in the world. and it's surprising sometimes when i hear the same sorts of stories in such different settings.
and i think it's alwaysso interesting to see that women are facing similarchallenges in so many places. our next guest is somebodywho is incredibly interesting. i think you're reallygonna enjoy her talk. i met with her just today. it's the first time i had theopportunity to meet with her. her name is admiral howard. she's amazing, and she has areally interesting perspective on gender equality in the united states.
she is, as of july 2014, the first woman four-star admiral in the navy and the first african american woman to,nd a ship.(applause) i think we need to send her to belize to explain to them that womencan actually go on ships. that might be helpful. i hear this rumor, althoughi forgot to ask her this. that she was in that tom hanks,
there was a reference to heror somebody portrayed her in the tom hanks captain phillips movie. so maybe she'll tell us about that. she is one of the most accomplished women in the history of theunited states military and i'd like to welcome her here today. thank you. - thank you, ambassador. yes, i'm admiral michelle howard,
and i have fought pirates in my life. but that's not what i'mhere to talk about today. first of all, thank you for the honor of addressing this forum. i wanted to begin bycongratulating all the awardees. the women that you're gonnahere today and have heard from inspire all of us, men and women, with their courage and their leadership. i just get a few minutes to let you know
a little bit about myself and my navy, and what it means to me incontext of a forum like this. the navy is pretty wellknown in most countries. we go back one? that one, thanks. any country that hasmaritime domain has a navy. the world is about 80% water. and we operate in the air, onthe seas, and below the seas. now when we say below the seas,
most people think of submarines. but in our case, that also means divers. and in my community, in my navy, which is made up of pilots and submariners and folks who drive ships like myself, the divers is one of ourmost challenging communities. and i wanted to introduce youto one diver specifically. navy chief diver jones, who can swim 500 meters in 12 minutes,
does 50 push ups in twominutes, 12 pull ups, and can run a mile anda half in 12 minutes. yes, and i think that is our first slide. this is chief petty officer rebecca jones. navy diver.(applause) she came in first in her class of a dive school of 25 people. there are very few women whoend up in this community. in fact, there are six right now.
but rebecca's the first tosay that underneath the water, there's no women divers,there's no male divers. there's just divers. what rebecca teaches us isthat one person matters. the first of something matters. trailblazers matter. and they matter because they give faith to everybody else who comes along. and it's as simple asworking in a building
and you're going about your business. and in every building, there's always thepicture of the leadership. but what does it say when no one in any of those pictures looks like you? so there's a differencebetween having zero and one. and having that picture. it's the differencebetween theory and reality. so one person matters, the first matters.
crossing that finish line matters. but the race cannot endthere with just one. ruth bader ginsburg, when asked, "what's the right number ofwomen on the supreme court?" has frequently quipped, "nine." when she gets the response, yeah it's her story,but i like telling it. and sometimes people are shocked. she says, "how come no one ever questioned
"when there were nine men?" so the issue becomeswhat is the right number? for my community in aviation, it just so happens thatthe right number of people for a p-8, which is our premier anti-submarine warfareaviation platform, is nine. next picture. one more. this is a group of anall-female aviation crew
that recently went out last year. that happened to have been launched by an all women ground crew, repaired by an all women maintenance crew. and even more amazing, whenthey were flying in the air, one of the ships that gavethem queuing information to a submarine, one of thepetty officers looked down and said, "that's my mom'sship, she's on there." (laughter and applause)
so on their flight, they managed to identify and track a submarine in the pacific withintheir first hour of flight. and they were very successful. and it's not that they were successful because they were women. they were successfulbecause they were trained. they were educated, and they were ready. but to justice ginsberg's point,
is the right number nine? is it four and five? and what i wanna say is in the race, the right number mightbe all of one gender. the right number mightbe five or four or zero. the right number is meritocracy. that at that point and time, the best people who arebest qualified and ready are the people who have that position.
next slide. so it really is about the finish line. and numbers do matter. so you gotta have one person get across. but you gotta have some numbers in order to make surethat the race continues. so for all of us in the great finish line of security around the world, we have to encourage womento go into diplomacy.
to go into security, togo into areas of safety. to go into judicial areas. that our presence matters. numbers can be significant. but numbers matter at all levels. and so you can't just have women admirals and women ambassadors. you have to have women policeofficers who walk the beat. you have to have that womanjudge who has that perspective.
and then, some day, thefinish line will change. the finish line will be about everybody, everyone who has merit has the opportunity to be in the race. that is the real finish line. thank you.(applause) - greetings. - [voiceover] helloeveryone, i'm delighted... (inaudible)
- greetings and welcome. it is an honor for me to appearhere on the 10th anniversary of the internationalwomen of courage award. few issues more important or consequential than the empowerment of women. a society cannot function properly, never mind excel or prosper, if half the population is not able to live up to its full potential.
to the extraordinary womenwho we honor here today, you have demonstrateda remarkable commitment to improving your societies. you are an inspiration towomen in your own countries and around the world, including me. you understand that women'srights are human rights. and indeed, you represent not only women, but all people who seekequal justice, equal rights, and the non-negotiabledemands of human dignity.
as we honor all of you foryour courage and dedication, we congratulate you foryour accomplishments. we stand with you and wish you the best. congratulations. - [voiceover] pleasewelcome our second panel, women and ending gender-based violence. - hello, and thanks to all of you. i'm margaret brennan from cbs news. i cover u.s. foreign policy
from the white house,from the state department. and i am incrediblyhonored to be here today with such an amazing panel of women of incredible, incredible courage. and you can see their names, their titles, and where they're from, what they're working on behind me here. but i want to quickly run through their individual stories for you.
sara hossain, here atthe end, from bangladesh has played an incrediblerole in her country drafting legislation onviolence against women. and she has brought some landmark cases to the supreme court in her country. dr. nagham nawzat hasanis doing incredibly brave work in iraq,working with yazidi women. providing psychologicalsupport for so many of them. nisha ayub here, next to me, from malaysia
is a leading advocate fortransgender rights in malaysia. has actually served prison time herself, can talk to us abouther personal experience. and is fighting to help legally support lgbt persons in her country. and a 2014 honoree, maha al muneef from saudi arabia is also with us. i've got you a bit out of order here, but hopefully you'll allfollow along with me.
has fought for women and againstchild abuse in her country. so i want to talk first to dr. hasan about some of the work in iraq. we've heard about the more than 3,000 yazidi women enslaved by isis. can you talk to us specificallyabout what that kind of gender-based violencedoes to a community? what are you seeing? - [voiceover] since august,
the third of august, 2014, isil has invaded the area of sinjar and the nineveh, the plain. and they also systematicallykilled 3,500 men and also they raped and enslaved 5,000 women within two days. they took them to the areasunder their own control. they beat them, it was severe beating. and they forced them to adopt islam,
and those who refusedwere killed forcibly. several women were executed because they refused to espouse islam. also, the isil gangs took1,200 children to camps where they would brainwash them and train them on theworst kinds of killings and also to create a terroristgeneration out of them. several women in isis camps also committed suicide ortried to commit suicide
in order to get rid of this injustice practiced against them. we have noticed thatthe psychological state of those who survived was very difficult. in that time, i and other activists volunteered for the purpose of providing psychological therapy to the idps. i noticed that several members of the yazidi community were moving,
and we were trying to providepsychological help to them. after that, i worked with the survivors. this marked a major change in my life. i provided psychological and mental health to those survivors. i also met several womenwho were barely 10 years old were raped and sold severaltimes and traded as slaves. there are many painful stories. i noticed them and observed them myself.
for example, a woman inher 30s with four children. they used to move herfrom one area to another and she tried to escape. isis gangs captured her and she was penalized byhaving her 15 year old daughter raped before the eyes of her own mother. and then her childrenwere also given poison and their three children were killed. there were several cases, horrific cases
that women in isis camps suffered from. and this is in addition tothe disease that they carried. isis elements put many of them in prisoners underground,and they were dark and moist and lacked any acceptableliving conditions. no water. they were malnutritioned and barely fed. and for that reason, they suffered from many diseases, including anemia
and other cases of skinconditions and other conditions. we follow up on themedical and physical health of these people, and wegive them vaccinations. and we try to transform theminto normal people in society. however their mental state is difficult. they live under very difficult conditions. they have lost everything, they have lost their own relatives who were killed rightbefore their own eyes.
of course, i cannot forgetthe stories of these people. and i see their own sufferings in my own dreams all the time. this makes me continue to follow up and provide treatmentto all those survivors. - so much of what youdescribe is unimaginable. any one of the individualstories you just laid out for us. maha, i want to bring youinto the conversation. we just heard what gender-based violence
looks like in a war zone. within a state, what areyou seeing in saudi arabia? - first of all, gender-basedviolence occur in all countries and all culturesand at different levels. so no country is immune from this disease, and saudi arabia isdefinitely not an exception. in a world survey ofviolence against women, the rate of violenceagainst women was ranging from 10 percent to 69 percent.
and as i always say, saudiarabia is within this range. we're not the best, butwe're not really the worst. gender-based violence is acomplex problem in saudi arabia. and you cannot really lookinto gender-based violence against women in a conservative society without looking at it inthe context of the culture. the cultural norms andthe beliefs of the people. so when you look at risk factorsof gender-based violence, they're very similar toanywhere in the world.
when you look at individual levels or relationships or community. poverty, unemployment, economical problems, drugs, alcoholism. all these are present everywhere. but when you really lookat the society level you can see that the culture play a major role in encouraging violence. and as i always say, violenceis everywhere, it's the same.
what differ from one country to the other is how we respond to it and if we are justifying it. and some cultures are justifying violence. and it is sad to say, sometime women are justifying violence. and they're accepting the violence. - are you speaking about saudi arabia? - yes, saudi arabia asa conservative society.
cultures is very difficult to change and sometime violence arecommitted against women based on cultures and thenorms that they live, on that. so gender-based violence is common. the good thing is justa lot of civil societies established in saudi arabia. i established the national program on domestic violence in 2005, and last november we celebrated10 years of this program.
during these 10 years, we really did a lot of public awareness. and we improved the services. but most importantly,changing local legislations. sometime, some of the local legislations can promote violence and encourage it and not respond to these violence. so we were glad to approve the first against domestic violence,
which was approved in august 2013. this law is the first one that criminalizes domestic violence, improve the services of domestic violence at the social level,in the medical sectors, and in the judicial system. so having a legislation and improving the legislation can improve the situation. - sara, for you,
you've taken cases all theway to the supreme court. do you see this as a local level fight, as you just heard frommaha, a need to focus there, or is it a top down response? - i think the domesticsphere is the most important frontline inside the nationand inside the country. but this is really atransnational struggle, as well. we're using the internationalhuman rights standards, international activism of feminists
and human rights activists, to support and strengthen struggles that go on inside different countries. hearing both speakers, and especially the first speaker, i really have to recall that in bangladesh just two generations ago, 45 years ago, and the anniversary of ourindependence was a few days ago. we were looking at a situation
where there was one of thelast mass rapes in history. one of the largest mass rapes in conflict. and that was an issue thatcouldn't be talked about. couldn't be dealt with for many years. all the women who cameout of that conflict did spearhead, becauseof their experience, we got dramatic changes. we got abortion recognizedwithin a year of the conflict because of having torespond to the reality
of what mass rape does to a society. we got adoption recognizedin our laws within a year. but then in the decades since, we've had dramatic changes there too. adoption is no longer part of the law in bangladesh, and that has happened because of the forces of fundamentalism. of extremist politics, sayingthat you cannot have adoption of muslim children by christians abroad.
an incredibly retrogressive and incredibly insular,incredibly narrow view. completely denying therights of those children and of their families, who wantto put them up for adoption, and of the families who wantto take them in for adoption. so i think in a generation, we've seen these tremendous changescoming out of conflict. and now in today's bangladesh dealing with the past, havingwar crimes trials going on,
giving reparations to thewomen who came though that. maha spoke about the importanceof criminalizing violence. it's almost as important, in a way, where we've seen the opposite response. of trying to criminalize,trying to fast track. we're forgetting what youhave to do for survivors, and forgetting whatsurvivors and victims need. so we're in a different position now where we're also talkingabout reparations.
and how women who, 45 years ago, couldn't face public recognition, didn't want public recognition because of the consequencesit would have for their lives, now saying that they'rewilling to be recognized and having a state and a society which is recognizing notonly their experience, but what their contribution did to improve the lives ofother women in the country.
- nisha, can you tell us a little bit about what you're seeing in malaysia. specifically the lgbt community. what kind of legal protections are there against this kind of violence? - so in malaysia itself, as we all know. not we all know, only me now basically. in malaysia, we have sharia laws that basically say that
it's illegal for a manto bear a woman's attire. so what does that mean? if i'm a transgendered woman and if i come out from my house, i can be arrested andi can be put in prison. and it's different in states. for instance, say a state says that you can be put inprison for three months to 1,000 ringgit imprisonment, or both.
and some states will say to three years to 1,000 ringgit, or both. just imagine, just forportraying our identity. that is only for trans people. and not just that, wehave certain politicians, religious departments, andcertain people out there who tends to portray lgbtpeople as being deviant, as being against islam. and when such power,
i would say the media portray people. and so it automatically creates violence. and that violence automatically go against to us trans people, because in between the lgbt community, transpeople are the most visible. not just that, we evenhave cases of hate crimes in malaysia towards trans people. just recently, last month, a young transgender woman, 21 years old.
a muslim transgender woman was killed. she was killed from the third floor and her body was dumpedfrom the third floor, right down the apartment. just last month. for me, i would say, why does it happen? it's because when youhave, as i mentioned, stakeholders tends to portray negative impression towards lgbt community,
you are actually encouraging people to do violence, to do hate crimes towards people like us. and if you talk about the future of lgbt people in malaysia, sadly, i feel hope, i always have hope to the day when i wasout of prison to today. i still have hope,fighting for the rights. but if the state or the government
back in malaysia do not recognize that the lgbt community back in malaysia is just asking for basic human rights, to be protected, and they still implement those kind of laws against trans people, lgbt people, til then there are no human rights being upholdback home in malaysia. the government need to recognize that we are part of the citizen
and we should be protected under the law. in regards of race, gender,or even your sexuality. - [margaret] why were you jailed? - i was jailed, i was arrestedbecause of the sharia law under section 66, for cross dressing. at that time i was just 21 years old. because my identity, my id says i'm male, even though if i'd gone for my sex reassignmentsurgery or whatever,
they still put me in the male prison. and i have endure sexual harassment and i would like to share,that was my first experience of sex in my whole life,which is in prison. and i was just 21 years old. and i still remember the judge. when he sentenced that judgment to me, he told me that the reasonwhy he put me in prison was he hoped once icome out from the prison
i would be a normal man. and these things still happening to today. last two months, 12 transgender women in penang was arrestedunder the same sharia law. if we have such law based on our gender then is there equality in our country? - all of you have spoken ofvery different experiences. but if there's one common thread that you've all called upon here,
it's the forces of somereligious-based extremism that has attacked womenin one way or another. dr. hasan, is there any such thing as healing or protection for women? do you see a situationlike sara just sketched out where 45 years later, thereis some sort of resolution, some gradual coming to grips with this. is that something you can imagine in the middle of a conflict like this
that has so eaten atthe women you've seen? - [voiceover] of course, we call on the international communityto take immediate action. until now, there aremore than 30,000 women and children in the hands of the daesh. and they haven't been liberated. unfortunately, internationalefforts have been very slow. we have attended several conferences, myself and my colleagues,
and we have tried to relay to them the suffering of those people. but there are very slow international movement in this regard. so we called upon theinternational community to take immediate action to liberate-- - [margaret] action, what do you need? - [voiceover] to liberatethose kidnapped by daesh. to save the children whoare being held by daesh.
and also to support theidps in kurdistan camps, which lack the very basicconditions needed for living. and also to providepsychological and social and economic help for those survivors so that they can overcome their suffering and live a free life. we would also like... daesh is committing crimes in the name of religion, especially islam,
and there has to beinternational solidarity on the part of all countries to fight the ideology of daesh, especially by arab countries. to decree fatwas stipulating that daesh does not represent islam and that we have to coexistpeople on this land. and that this land is a placewhere all people can live, and no one can prevent anotherfrom living on this land.
- same idea to you, do you feel like you are battling fundamentalism, or whatever you want tocall this extreme ideology? - yes, i think in all cultures, conservative cultures, it's the same. domestic violence or violenceagainst women is a taboo. it's looked at as a family issue. worse then that is when it'sjustified under religion. if somebody says, religion tell me
that i can discipline my wife, and then they try to look at it from a religious point of view. and this is the really difficult one. it is very difficult tocome and teach people the real islam and the real religion. there's nothing in religion that says you can beat your wife. - so can you get religious leaders
to help you, or are you at odds with them? - actually, when i startedthis program in 2005 i was reluctant to cometo religious people. i thought, this has nothingto do with religion, this is a public health issue, we're gonna address it froma scientific point of view. but after two years, i discovered that people listen tothese religious people. and if they are on my side,
then it will be a win win situation. so i really did get them into my side. and we get a realstatement from the mufti, which is the higher religious person in saudi arabia that came out and speak about domesticviolence being really bad, and then he was promoting family safety and taking care of womenand women's rights. so it is still a battle,
but i do have a lot of judges, a lot of religious people that come to my office. initially, they were really not liking me, thinking thati'm really an activist or i'm really westernized woman. that i want to get womenoutside their homes and complaining about their husband. but after they see our work
and we're really talking about, i'm a woman from saudi arabia and i want to help thewomen of saudi arabia. so now i see a lot of people, religious people, judges,they come to my office with ideas and they wantme to implement these ideas that really promote gender equality and promote the rights of women. - same question to bothsara and nisha here.
is there opportunity tobring the religious community into this, or are youinherently at odds with them? - i think there may be opportunities, but i think there are other opportunities that can be looked at. in the experience of our work, i think trying to take approaches which are about affirmingconstitutionalism and affirming constitutional values
and human rights values,and then compelling religious bodies orauthorities or individuals to accept that they mustlive within that frame, rather than us entering into that terrain, has been an effective approach for us. and an important approach for us. - [margaret] so through the courts. - yeah, though the courts. but also through campaigns,
also through citizen activism. for example, the issue of fatwas. we had this situation,ongoing for much longer. but women's rightsactivists focused in on it from the early 90s. typical situation of a woman being issued the fatwa for having gone out with a guy, for having extramaritalrelations, let's say. or in the worst, most crazy example,
a muslim woman speaking toa hindu guy in a village. and there would be a fatwaissued by an informal local body saying that she had to be caned or whipped or be ostracized, and thesewere handfuls of cases. it's not that we're talking about tens of thousands of cases. but they're emblematic cases, and the kinds of cases thatreally have a clear red line that you can't allow thatto happen in your society.
and the way it has been stopped in the end is by the supreme court stepping up and saying very clearly that if you have a constitution that has basic values, basic principles of personal liberty,freedom of expression, right to life, right to liberty. then you have to protect those and you cannot issue fatwas
which will serve asextrajudicial penalties. you cannot issue fatwas if you are not an authorized legal body. you are some random person claiming religiousauthority in some village. and you say you are speaking the religion, that doesn't immunize youfrom the forces of law and any kind of accountability. so i won't say we've stopped everything,
but i would say that's animportant approach to follow. the question still remains. should you bring in religious bodies, should you try and usereligious interpretations that are progressive and positive and will harmonize withhuman rights principles? and i think for each societyyou have different answers. but i think an important answer has to be, that can't be your step one.
your step one must be youhave a common set of values which are based on universalhuman rights principles. and then this can be a tactical approach. but it can't be the principled approach, whether we work with religious authorities or religious language and all of that. quick example why it's a problem for us to take that approach. in bangladesh right now, we still have
religion based person laws. the muslim person laws arerelatively progressive. being a muslim majority country, we've made some amendments to those. but for hindu women or christian women, for hindu women it's impossible to get a divorce still in bangladesh. no matter how abusiveyour marriage might be, you have absolutely no exit route.
if you're a christian woman in bangladesh, a protestant christian woman, suppose you're in anincredibly abusive marriage and you want out, you'regonna have to prove that your husband, a, committed adultery, b, committed one of either bestiality or necrophilia or sodomy in order to get out of that situation. how is that happening in 2016?
why are we not changing that? surely the constitution is goodenough for us to address it. - well we're running out of time. i could talk to all of youfor hours, but i want you to have the final word hereto answer that question. where is the protection? is it within the religious community, is it within the law? how do you do this?
- for me, it's very simple. i've tried working withthe religious people, but it was an obstacle. the older generation would just stick on their basicunderstanding of islam. and islam, there's so manyinterpretation of religion. for me, there should be a distinction between religion and law itself. in malaysia, we have two laws.
sharia law and civil law. and sometimes the sharia law does, in a way, affectthe judgment on civil law. so for me, i would say there should not be integration of the sharia law inthe civil system itself. they should be a distinct. because when you talk about human rights, it's based not just on one race
or one religion, it's for everyone. so i would stick on fundamentalof human rights value rather than going to religion. it's how i feel. - unfortunately, we have to leave it there because of the rest of the program. thank you, all of you women have incredible stories andare doing incredible work. and thanks to all of you.(applause)
- [voiceover] pleasewelcome jestina mukoko, 2010 international women of courage honoree from zimbabwe.(applause) - good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. when i came in 2010, if you look at me today i'm putting on heels. but in 2010 i could not put heels because of the torture i had suffered. my feet were hurting.
and i think this is thedifference that i recognize today since i receivedthe award in march, 2010. being flanked by the world's most looked up women, secretary clinton and the first lady, michelleobama, was just so humbling. and i think for me on that particular day also sitting closeto reese witherspoon, who i never thought i would meet in person, was the cherry on top.
the award ceremony meantthat i had the opportunity to meet with other honoreesand share experiences. and what that did forme was that i realized that i had not done anything wrong. there was something wrongwith the system, not with me. i realized that they were alot of women all over the world who were determined to make adifference and in most cases working against the grain at enormous risk to them and their families.
the work of the organization that i work for, this zimbabwe peace project, was actually elevated to a podium. the volunteers that we workwith were adopted throughout the country in the 210 electoralconstituencies like a mosaic. i think for me, they were my pride because getting the award made them resolute. they are determined men and women who are committed and courageous
to light the dim into the corners of human rights violations. i think their collective effort in zimbabwe could no longer be ignored. two years after i receivedthe award, my organization was banned in one of the provinces. i think they realized thatwe were bringing out a lot of issues and they wantedto muzzle that voice. but the way that we worked,it was impossible to ban
the organization soreports kept on coming out. and when i look back to2008 when i experienced a roller-coaster type of events being tortured, having been abducted and in my life spending time incommunicado, spending time in a police cell, and also spending time ina maximum-security prison. i think yesterday i wassaying i had also mastered the art of working withleg irons and handcuffs.
it needs a bit of (mumbles) to be able to walk in them and tonot hurt to yourself. i believe that the experience that i had was a kind of a silver lining. it was a rare opportunity forme to experience what a lot of the people that we deal withexperience on a daily basis. when someone speaks to meabout being abducted today, being tortured, and being persecuted... i know what they are talking about.
painful as it was, ithink it made me stronger and convinced me thatthere is merit in speaking and rendering assistance tovictims of the numerous human rights violations that exist in zimbabwe. in the years gone by, i thinkwe've also realized that those responsible for human rightsviolations have been cutting back on the practice, realizingthat they're formidable and not easily intimidated setsof eyes and ears in places that they never thought existed.
some of them actually livewith them and they don't know. the violence that accompanied the elections in 2013 wasdifferent in that it was transformed from being overt and gross to covet and subtle. and that also brought challenges with it in the sense that most sentences were used to gross,over the forms of human rights violations, did not easilyrecognize that their rights were
still being violated without a broken limb or a swollen face. the intimidation that most ofthem got to expect the images of 2008 were used and that wasenough to make them afraid. because they knew that the system could follow through with violations. while the award was commitled the way by making it easy for us to be noticed,it also had its downside. if elevated me to a point where vpp, which
is the organizationthat i work for, became synonymous andinterchangeable with the just (mumbles) and the american agenda. many writers made it their daily tasks to write and speak ill of the award. in 2010 and 2011, a lot of my days were spoiled trying to gothrough the money paper and there you are, ifind my picture flanked by secretary clinton and the first lady.
i think what people fail torealize was that the work that i do, which resultedin the board was the result of an ingrainedculture of political violence that had nothing to dowith me as an individual. and i also believe hasnothing to do with the award. in 2013, the persecution of the organization and i started again. at that time, at the momenti actually had charges that are hanging over my headwhich can be perceived today.
and there was a timethat i was told that i was on a stop-list, that i could not get a passport being a citizenof zimbabwe, which is a violation of my rights as a citizen. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. - hello, everyone. i'm delighted to say mycongratulations to all 100 women who haven't received the secretary's international women of courage
award over the last decade. and i want to congratulate to this here is 15 on a raise. they are certainly in great company. as a secretary of state,i look forward to the international women ofcourage awards every year. i was honored to have the chanceto meet so many great women who are tackling some of theworld's greatest challenges. who are making real progresson issues like child
marriage, gender-basedviolence, and so much more. to this day, i draw strengthfrom your stories of courage and commitment, ofprotest and perseverance. as a secretary of state, iworked to make the advancement of the status of women centralto u.s. foreign policy. we did this not only becauseit was the right thing to do but because it wasalso the smart thing to do. none of our foreignpolicy goals from global economic grove, to climate change, to
peace and stabilitycan be achieved without the full and equal participation of women. i know this work continues at the state department, and with our partners around the world, and i thank you for the progress that you are making. so congratulations on 10 yearsand 100 and spider and women. there is no shortage ofbrave women in this world. i look forward to joiningall of you and celebrating
many more women of couragein the years to come. thank you all very much. - we are here today to talkabout women of courage but this is a panel that very well could be called women of grit becausethese are women who have it figured out they faced obstacles and they have figured out how toget around them, how to get under them, how to get through them, how to make the world a betterplace and we are all better
for it and expect inspired by them. my name is michelle norris. i'm a radio journalist andwriter here in washington, dc and it's wonderfulto have a conversation. i leave conversations all the time. i talk to people but usually behind glass and we don't get to see the audience. so it's wonderful to be ableto actually be in a room like this, you see theirnames appear behind us.
i'm going to introduce themand then as i do, i will do it briefly and then we'll be able to jump right into their stories. all the way at the endwe have our dinner coco. she is from sudan. she is known as today and as the tea lady. she is the founder and chair of both the women's food and tea service cooperative and the woman's
multi-purpose cooperative. and she has motivatedwoman to stand behind him. the cooperative'srepresents some 8,000 women. and she began her work 25 years ago. she's been at this for some time and she has continued in her resolve to seek justice and equal opportunity for women not just in sudan but around the world. next to her is (mumbles).
she is from thailand. she is co-owner of a bookstore. her book store is called bookrepublic and she is creative awareness for enhanced democracy,it's called cafe de marco. when you hear her, she issomewhat soft-spoken but she also speaks with a big voicethat is heard by many people. her bookstore is a gathering place for those who are interested in justice. she has been summonedtwice for military camps
for something called attitude adjustment. that's not just a slight turn of phrase, that's in quotations, attitude adjustment. and yes, she continues with this work. she is from russia andshe's a champion for democracy education andfreedom of information. this work is a case wherestruggle is born out of tragedy. her father was assassinated. he was a russian opposition politician
and former deputy prime minister. and she has become determinedto use her voice for justice. she's created a foundation in his name and she dreams of a prosperous and democratic russia, something that her father drink up also. and directly to my rightis a big e entertainment. she is from tanzania, she isa fellow journalist and she is working in tanzania to come back
terror that spot up on people w ho suffer from albinism. and you're going to tell us a little bit about that and how you have also faced the great opposition for your work and you continue to do this work. and since you're right next to me, i'm going to begin with you if you could. you were working on a story.
you went undercover to report on something and the story got inside of you and he were never able to let it go. people perhaps don'tunderstand what happens and tanzania to people whosuffer from albinism. could you just explain that for us? - to have albinism in tanzaniameans a death sentence. because persons with albinism are persecuted, they are hunteddown, they were targeted or
there bart body parts because which doctors tell theirclients that if you bring body parts of persons of albinism, we will make you rich, we willmake you successful, and you can even when elections. it has been going on for a long time. it is witchcraft based and people believe and trust of witch doctors. they're even afraid of what your doctors.
and when i started theinvestigation i thought, i was very nice, it's my country but ididn't know much about what was happening in my own countrybecause i studied abroad, excuse me, and i startedworking in london for the bbc. for many years i wasn't in my country. when i went back and i hadabout persons of albinism the being targeted fortheir body parts, even that scrapes are beingrobbed so that these body parts can be taken to whichdoctors, i was shocked.
it's a country which isknown as an island of peace. it's a country that is against racism. we have fought racism in other countries also including apartheid in south africa. i was surprised why weare discriminating our own people, are all brothers and sisters with albinism just becausethey have a different color in their eyes, skin, and also here. and so was i wentundercover because i didn't
believe in witchcraft, i didn't believe which doctors although i was warned that if you go there, they may harm you. being a christian, and not practicing witchcraft, i went there and pretended to be a businesswoman interested in mining and also fishing industry. because that is what we were told, that people from those communities or from
those businesses would go to which doctor is to get all these magic potions. - [voiceover] to bringthem luck or good fortune? - yes. and so that is what happened. and i visited 12 witch doctors. none of them realized that iwas general this undercover and none of them could tell me mypast, my real parents, or my present, and definitely they are
wrong about my future because i wasn't into any business,whether it's mining or fishing. from there on i knew that ifi took this story to tanzania, to the community, to theafrican community, they will stop believing witchcraft,they will stop believing which doctors, and they will stopkilling persons with albinism. i was wrong. and it was a scary momentfor me when at one time, my recorded fell off and ihad to talk my way throughout
my situation by telling the witch doctor that, that was another cell phone because it looksexactly like my cell phone. for that, but exposing these witch doctors, but telling the world through the bbc that which doctors are the ones fueling the killings. and some politicians who want to be elected, and some of them who want to
become ministers, and even presidential candidates do consult witch doctors. i made it tanzania, according to them, according to one minister, the help for witchcraft in a country that kills persons with albinism. and i became the number one enemy of my own country because i broke the tablet. - did you have to leave the country?
- i had to stay out of mycountry for about 18 months because it was not safe forme and even for my family. continuing to live in my country would have meant that my life would have been in danger but also my son's life would have been in danger. - i will ask a version of thisquestion to each and every one of you but at that point, you had to leave the country,your family's life is in
danger, your life is in danger, it would be easy to understandwhy you might decide to take another pack but you decided to continue to pursue justiceor try to change the value system in your country. what gave you the strengthto continue to pursue that battle knowing the dangers that face? - well, within those 18 months i used to come to sneak into the country.
and then when thingswere hot, i would go out. - [voiceover] you're nottalking about temperature. when things were hot you would. - stay out of the kitchen. during that time, i continue to report even when i was outside of tanzania. i continue to report because i had connection in rural areas. for me to hear stories or to talk with
parents especially mothers who's talk about their experience,how their children were murdered, her husband,how wives were murdered, how the persons withalbinism were mutilated, i thought something has to be done. and i cannot stand still andjust pretend that it's because i'm a journalist, it's something i report and then i go home. i couldn't live with myself.
i was restless. and so when the police, thehighway can police officer, that was the last straw, told me that if you continue to report about the killings of persons with albinism and that which doctorsare fueling the killings, and that some politicians are using these organs according to the witch doctors, you will be killed.
and when my puppies, sixpuppies were killed, or murdered, where poison,and my son almost escaped a vehicle accident, ithought it's time to say goodbye to journalism,hello human rights defense. i'm a human rights defender. they stopped me from reporting,that's fine, but i still report, i still investigatebecause i share the risk. i'll get the stories and thenspread the stories come and distribute it to the mediabut also i talk about it.
now, i work for under the samesun, the organization that promotes the rights and welfareof persons with albinism. it was started by one peter asked who has albinism in canada. and today, we have 320persons with albinism from kindergarten to phd level whoare under our sponsorship. but also we run campaigns, wecome back advocacy and public awareness campaigns in order to educate the public about albinism.
to date, we managed tohave a 5 resolutions. these are you and resolutions about albinism including the 10th of june. every year, we aresupposed to be working that day as internationalalbinism awareness day. - june 10th, so we will keep that date. - [voiceover] june the 13th. - is it jun 10th or june 15th? - [voiceover] the 13th.
- it's not an unlucky number now. - okay, we will keep that date in mind. - thank you. - we all live under the same sun and we all think about human rights in unique ways though, even though we are all under the same sun. and i want to hear yourperspective ornate in russia. you've been talking about the media.
you have been particularly disappointed in your country with the way that the media has approach to this issue, had betrayed this issue. what you sometimes the sea as a lack of courage in addressing this issue. when you talk a little bit about that? - could you repeat the questionabout the media in russia? - in russia comedy he saidthat he's been somewhat
disappointed in the waythey approached human rights issues, themaking that, and putting that at the center ofthe national discussion. - i will say that yourrights when you said that my social activitycame out of personal issues because my fatherwas assassinated in russia in front of thecriminal wars in moscow. and the problem withhuman rights in russia, is a very grave problem, about women's
discrimination, it'sabout fundamental human rights which are constantly violated. and in the case of myfather, first of all, he was deprived of his right toleave but now we are, the members of the family, ideprived her rightful justice because the investigationin russian is blocked. regarding media, i thinkthat everybody who follows what she knows aboutthe russian propaganda. russian propaganda, themain message is that
he went right is anamerican or human european concept and it doesn't work in russia. that's the basic conceptwhich is in russia. and also of course hate against everything american and european. there is a dramatic rise inanti-americanism in russia and it's also inspired mainly by the media. and i think the results of the award i was awarded today
will be text by russian media. - the award that you received here today, when you return home. i mean, this is a wonderfulmoment for you, but when you return home, what will youface when you return to russia? - i'm not going to return home. i love to russia almost 1 year ago. i'm going to return home,but now i live in germany. i think there won't be anyproblems although i'm not sure.
i'm joking. you said about personal foundation, what i said journalism. i strongly believe thatbeing a social activist dedicated to freedomof speech and education and objective investigation,all these things, undermine my journalistic objectivity. - you're living in germanybut you're fighting for rights for a country thatyou cannot live in any hurry.
- i would say i'm a realhuman rights defender. i'm not a very experienced at. what i'm doing actually is a very specific thing which is calling for justice regarding the investigation into my father's assassination. also a foundation for freedom which is a very professional organization. i think russian officialsthink differently but it is.
the main goals is enlightenment,supporting of people who demonstrated courage, andfighting for democratic rights. the foundation hasestablished a special price for these people who havethe rings in russian. what is important is discussion. that's why we're going to havea special form of roger that. finally education, to provide that in this year, so that's the basic works. i cannot call myself ahuman rights activists.
i'm probably a social activist. - why would you not callyourself a human rights activist? - because i have a very specific task educating for justice for my father. i think that's of coursehuman rights but... - [voiceover] it's personal. - it's very person of course in my case. but at the same time, if youdo not resist, this will go on. and i think if you show resistance,
even in russia, it can stop or at least kind of violence won't repeat and i hope for this very, very much. - i might have been much moreactive in the conversation. when you open your bookstore, did you have any notion that it would become a gatheringplace for people who were concerned about human rightsand justice in your country? - i will answer. we wanted to open the bookstore to
use it as a platform for discussion. we opened the store in 2011 when there was a (mumbles) in 2010. there was an incidentthat a lot of people lost their life in that yearso something was wrong. i believe that education and intellectuals should leave the society. i work in geo in my life and i want to do this by open a bookstore and open
the platform, a public platform as a floor for people to discuss so they can commit, they can talkabout social problems, and they can come in that what is true democracy and whatis the direction that the thailand should take. i never thought that thebookstore would be the answer. i thought it's justpart of the instrument. it will be part of the poolso people can talk about
it and we will be able tohelp and work together. - this (mumbles), that you were the proprietor, the owner of the bookstore. was it a more welcoming place? do you think it was easier for people to come to the bookstore knowing that he wasbehind it if you were a woman and does yourgender make a difference? - when i wanted to workhere, i never thought
what i am, whether i'm a woman or man. i had a motivation frominside that make me stand up to do somethingto make a difference. i never thought that beinga female to be an obstacle. but i just happened to be a woman in the world today is the world of democracy. the reality is it's stilla male-dominated society. right now, thailand isunder military power. it's a double oppression.
it is a double oppressionthat is getting worse. it is more than a normal condition. the situation in thailandright now, female, we felt like we are beingoppressed more than usual. this is still a male-dominant society. - i want to ask youthe same question about being a woman and whether that makes a difference in the workthat you do, and creating a cooperative in sudan.
if women are able to bring two people togetherin a way that perhaps men are not in creating a cooperative where women are not competingfor working together to pursue justice and human rights. - in the name of kathymercerville, my name is (mumbles). i would like to thank you for (mumbles). i'm from southern quote to the wire and i (mumbles) and i moved
to cartoon to an area called my room where the (mumbles) live. i went there and i didn't have an income. i moved with my family however i decided immediately to go to the marketplace and try to find any simple job in order to feed my family. unfortunately, i couldnot find any job except selling team because i knowhow to make tea at home.
but how can i make money off of 10? we (mumbles) from thesociety that i was not really selling team's have resources, my father is old, we don't have a brother. i took all the glasses, 35, everything that i went to the market. (mumbles) faced me inthe markets, number one. it was very funny. no shade, no place to stand.
(mumbles) i was not really selling the t, weather selling something else so i don't have any clients. and a device that i was patient and persistent and continue to work. after that, i felt somethingelse which is the local security forces would come andremove all of our equipment. when i see them coming, i start to one running and take my stuff.
but as you know, something happened. even hot water was spilled on me for other women trip and fall. but we were patient to getmoney to raise our families. but after a long time, andorganization called the student association for developmentcame to help us and they brought two umbrellas andthey immediately thought about the law to protect us, theinformal sector in two days. we couldn't think of any lawother than the corporate law.
so i created a corporateassociation and we just started. then an american company came and established a large building for us. this building helps usto work in a correct manner and it helps us to make a living. but after that, we face a major problem. i tried to improve my work. i brought up refrigerators and other necessary equipment for the women.
we created different placesto work as many people started wondering why is althea doing all of that? they sent me to prison. for years. the first year, i had to sell my house. i stayed in a prisonworking hard, washington, ironing, doing anythingto make a few dollars. when i left prison, i realized my son was in college for two
months and my son, after4 years, i left prison. prison doesn't really scare me. immediately after being released, i went to bed too the market surrounded by women. and after i was in charge ofthe association i created, i was nominated to becomethe chief president. at that point, i realized weare 8000 women in that market. we must all work together. why not create a network?
and that's what i thought about creating a union, themultipurpose union for women. it doesn't focus on thosewho sell tea but also any other work fallsunder the informal sector. from that moment on, we started getting training and learning on the log. along with the other women we all were trained on the legal matters. and i hope all women who worked
in the street and i made some members and our union so they don't taste any persecution and they are not forced to pay anything to work as vendors in the street. at that point, i started also providing resources and money for those women. i provide them with5,000 sudanese pounds to help themselves and their children because
for us, if children arenot said they will end up in the street and face major problems. and before, i focused onmothers and helped them to raise their childrenand sent them to colleges. and continue to help them tremendously. - thank you very muchfor sharing your story. you can see here that individuals can make a difference and creating a movement to come andcreating a safe haven,
increasing support for people to put women and themselves in a search for justice and creating a protective space for those who so badly needed. thank you very much all four of you. thank you very much.(applause) - [voiceover] pleasewelcome back ambassador russell and activist, sonita alizade. - one of the issues thatwe have spent a lot of
time working on recentlyunder the direction of the secretary and with the greatassistance of the white house has been some workon adolescent girls. i see my great khali, andambassador burks, who's here from pittsburgh who'sa tremendous ally in that. and one of the issues that we'revery concerned about around the world is the challengeof early and forced marriage. we care about adolescent girls of course for many reasons but in part
because they are the women of courage for tomorrow so we're very concerned about trying to make sure that they can stay in school and have all the opportunities that we would like to see them have. this next game is a realtreat and i think it's safe to say, i can'tguarantee this but i think it's likely that youwere the first rapper to
come to the united statesthe state department. i can't guarantee it. you're probably the firstafrican rapper to come here. but again, i can't guarantee it, i think it's just very likely. but it's a real treat. this is a summative who is an advocate in afghanistan against early and forced marriage which
is a horrible, horrible thing that happens to girls there. she's going to do a performance for us but i think you all aregoing to really appreciate. (foreign language) - [voiceover] secretaryof state, john kerry, and the vice president of theunited states, joe biden. - ladies and gentlemen thank you. please, everybody sit.
i will be very brief. i have to leave in a moment to go over to a meeting at the white house. and the vice president's comeover here to meeting here. and no, we are notswitching jobs, i promise. the vice president and i havebeen friends for a long, long time going way back to the1970's which dates both of us. but i had the pleasureof serving with him in the united states senatefor many, many years.
and i will tell you thatnowhere did i see more passion, more leadership, more legislative ability, then senator joebiden's efforts to pass the violence againstwomen act in the 1990s. he went to the floor again and again and again, but more importantly he helped meeting aftermeeting, went to the white house, worked with all of the leadership, cajoled,
showed enormous skill in shepherding this very complicated bill back then through an ideological mind field. and he simply was notgoing to accept defeat. so, with dozens of trips tothe white house and dozens of meetings with congressionalleadership, he found the common ground and he eventually managerto change the way that our country responded to domesticviolence and sexual assault. every step of the wayhe sought out colleges
and advocates, and he was willing not just to share the work with them, he cared the credit with everybodyand that is leadership. and he has brought thosequalities to the white house. as vice president joebiden announced the first ever white house advisoron violence against women. he has strengthened theefforts to reduce dating violence against students,teens, and young women. he launch the one is too many
initiative which uses technology and outreach to help reduce dating violence and sexual assault. and he joined president obamain creating the white house task force to protectstudents from sexual assault. joe's father has a sayingthat, "everyone everywhere is "entitled to be treated withdignity and respect," and that is what this effort is all about." as you know, he also wasinvited by lady gaga,
his now very good friend. he told me the best moment, no. ladies and gentlemen,without further ado, lady gaga's friend, vice presidentof the united states. - she's my new best friend. but she has about 55 million followers on twitter and can do a lot. this secretary, going to the white house so i don't get in trouble
with my boss that you say that you were late because joe kept me. and let me start off bythanking ambassador russell. kathy, as i know her, kathyand i and her husband, tom, and her brother-in-law, wego back a long, long way. we've been friends for a long time. and the president couldn'thave picked a single person in the countryas a better ambassador to begin to change theway and the attitude
of the would about how we treat women. and to the winners past and present, winners of the international women's of courage award, let me start by saying not congratulations but thank you. thank you from the bottom of our heart. you're changing the world. not an exaggeration. your efforts are gonna change the world.
your courage, the courage that you have expressed i told whenwe had an opportunity to have a photograph inthe back, excuse me for repeating myself but my mother raised us. you can always tell a manwho truly respects women. usually they had a verystrong mother, sister, wife. in my family, as you know,everyone in my family is brighter or stronger than iam starting with my mother. but my mother had an expression,and i really mean this.
she used to say, "remember, joe, "you're defined by your courage. "you're defined by your courage and you're redeemed by your loyalty." that's not hyperbole,that's what she taught us. i wish she were here to meet all of you. i really mean that. i wish she were here totalk to you, to see you, to hear your storiesbecause you've done so
much with your courageand your loyalty to not leave, to not walk away, to a better life. but to stay, to stay, andstay, and stay, and stay. they are, and many of you in this room and women around the world, are literally the foundation on which progress in the world can be built. it is not hyperbole to suggest that the world will never, never, never
reach its potential to all women are treated with dignity and respect. all women, and this is not hyperbole, all women, all women understand that there is capable of any man of doing anything at all, period. you're an incredible group of women. all of you are defined by yourtenacity and your talent, and your intellectual capacity, and
your capacity for compassion. i marvel at what they've accomplished. i really do. it's a marvel. reusing the city girls fromthe barbarians in isil, helping them recover from their injuryand maybe more profoundly psychological injuries. advocating for the rights of refugees, pushing back against the forces of
xenophobia to do what's right. standing against engrainedcultural corruption to expose human smugglingand uphold the law. you face down threatsfrom your government, government intimidation,and members of your society. our honoree from thailandwas twice subjected to "attitudinalreadjustment," what a lovely phrase, at a military camp because she was committed for fosteringfreedom of expression.
you endured unjust imprisonmentand often violence. our honoree from malaysia was attacked with an iron pipe on her way to work in september, proving how necessary her work of defending transgenderwomen and men are. our honoree from china who couldn't make the journey after receiving this award. who was so badly beaten in jail,she could no longer use her legs, just for defending therights of chinese homeowners.
and through it all, all of you,you refuse to remain silent. you refuse to remain silent and that's all you had to do, just be silent. you've overcome in transresistance and ignorance. you've kept fighting the battlesbecause of your bone deep conviction that the worldcan be made a better place. you've all set a standardto which all men and women around the world shouldaspire. and we truly are in your debt because inits most basic form, all
of these women are fightingfor the same thing. it's something that myfamily and faith taught me, that the greatestabuse of the power and the cardinal sin of all sins,the cardinal sins of all sins is the subjugationof women and children. it's all about power. that's what it's about. power. we see it every day in ways large
and small, often sheltered under the guise of culture,so-called cultural norms. there's no excuse, nonewhatsoever, i make no apologies for speaking withthe present i believe, no apologies whatsoever forthe unspeakable and immoral ways that women aretreated around the world. no religion, no tradition, no culture. there is no excuse. it's time we step away from the
notion that it's a culture norm. abuse is abuse is abuse, period. the fact that a society has perpetuated inhumanities against women for hundreds of yearsdoesn't make it any less wrong. around the world there are countless examples in the way of women are routinely treated as fundamentally less valuable than men.
female genital mutilation, early forced marriages, honor killings. i can go on and on and on. most all of which have operated under the guise of a culture norm. treating women as though you were a cattle, as though you were a property to be used and abused, has a more powerful (mumbles) saw fit.
as though somehow, you're less deserving of basic human dignity. all of you honoreesstand in stark rebuke to this wrong and dangerous way of thinking. we have to change the culture not only here in america but around the world. you refuse to be cowed or defined by social morals that pressured you to remain silent, to sitdown, to be quiet, to give up.
understand act like awoman, act like a lady. you're living proof that there is not now and there never has been, in a religious culture or social norm that justifies denying any woman or girl anywhere in the world the dignity that are afforded to all god's children of being treated with dignity. and by the way, the amazing thing i don't
quite understand is you think societies, both advanced and emerging, would understand that by holding women back from contributing their talents and their energies to society is not only immoral and unjust, but it's totally counterproductive. totally absolutely counterproductivefor those societies and those countries thatengage in this behavior.
cultures and societies that don't treat women as equal are never going to obtain the growth they need to prosper, to succeed in the 21st century. that' snot a biden rule, that' snot an american rule, that's just the nature. the nature of the way societies and commerce functions today. you can't find too muchtalent in a country.
my wife is a good friend of kathy's. ambassador, excuse me, kat. the ambassador has an expression. it's just one example. any country that out educatesus will out compete us. how do you leave behindhalf the brain power? i mean, just a simple basic assertion, a common sense assertion. you can't end conflicts, youcan't achieve lasting peace
without including women asstakeholders and trust builders. how can we not know that?you can't confront a violent extremist without addressingit, the way they treat women. you can't keep their obnoxious ideology from infecting communities without enlisting mothers and sisters and wives to help intervene. there can be no conversationabout basic human rights. the ability to be free fromtyranny, terrorism, and poverty
without affording those rights to the women of every country. the right to be educated,the right to own property, the right to marry whoyou choose, the right to engage in business andcommerce, the right to live free from the threatof violence and fear. these are basic fundamentaluniversal human rights. your chinese honoree is nothere, but as a reminder of a famous chinese saying,"women hold up half the sky.
"women hold up half the sky." more than that, they're half the population or slightly higher. half the gray matter in the world, half the brain power, probably more than half theenergy, i suspect more than half the determination, half the ambition. these are the thingsthat drives societies to prosper, to give our children better
opportunities than we hadwhatever society it is. there's a simple equation. when women are not allowedto the social, economic, and political life of theircommunities, everyone's worse off. everyone, everyone does better. it's not just joe biden saying this. in america, some peoplethink maybe i emphasize this issue about violenceagainst women too much. this is just not me sayingthis, it's just basic
common sense. and it'sbacked up by empirical data. a recent mckinsey reportshow that if we close the gender gap inemployment, we would end it. $28 trillion to the world's gdp. everyone's standard of living would rise. everyone in the world would benefit. the united nations study suggested that female farmers in developing countries, if they could increase their
productivity if they had the same access as men to the tool, seed, and other critical resources, they could reduce malnutrition rates by as much as 150 million people. how does that not benefitevery man and every boy in that society? tellme what the downside is. and we know from the world bank. and the world healthorganization unicef in a
range of independentstudies that when women and girls gain access to education, we see enormous positiveoutcomes across the board. higher wages, faster economic growth in their countries, lower rates of input of infant mortality,lower rates of h.i.v., later marriages, smaller families. i've seen it over and overagain as i travel the world. i've traveled over amillion miles just as being
vice president and most of your countries. how women anywhere in the world, when they have a chance to cultivatetheir raw talents, they are just as likely as men to become entrepreneurs, engineers,political leaders. that's their choice. should didn't have to make that choice that they rather not have an occupation. that should be their choice.
their choice. i saw it in mumbai when iwas meeting with young women. kathy, you and i were together i think they're, if i'm not mistake. we were in japan together and i can't remember if it was mumbai. i went to the indian institute of technology, an incredible institution. that is the mit india, theunited states mit. massachusetts
institute of technology, one of our great, great universities. these amazing women, all phd candidates, were literally in the laboratories at 3:00 a.m. working on ways to reinvent the delivery of health care in their country. working on ways to increase one of the crying needs in india. increase access to transportation
for employment, for movement. i saw in tokyo with ambassador russell touring the headquarters of a very successful internetstartup founded by a woman. kathy and i, what theambassador and i saw, we met with a whole room of women entrepreneurs who are the key to kick starting the greater economic growth in japan.
if you notice, under bionomics, japan is now reaching out tokeep women in the workforce. in america, the presidenti are fighting to increase childcare payments forwomen who want to work. just by doing that, we put seven-tenths of 1% more women in the job market, i mean excuse me, 2.5% more women in the job market. and we increased the unitedstates g.d.p. by almost 1%.
it's a choice. you shouldn't have towork if you don't want to, but it's a choice andwomen exercise that choice. the entirety of society benefits. advancing opportunities forwomen is in our strategic interests in every country,as well as a moral imperative. that's why president obama have made sure that women rights and girls' rights are the focusof part of our foreign policy.
president obama and i raisedthis issue with all of the leaders in each yearcountries when we meet. so did secretary kerry, so do our diplomats around the world. we created for the firsttime the ambassadorship for global women's issues seven years ago. we picked the most qualified person in the country to do it, ambassador russell, to concentrate
and coordinate our global efforts. americans make many mistakes. we don't treat women as well as we should either. we're working like the devilon it to change the culture. we're not the citadel but we know. we know. why it's over in our interestnot just that women in america succeed but womenaround the world succeed. we send billions of dollarsof american taxpayers'
money and usaid and other forms of aid. imagine, imagine what we could build if your societies empowered women. and since then, we developed a roster of developmental programsto help governments and civil society addressthe specific challenges women face in their individual countries. again, we don't have all the answers. i hope i don't come off as america
knows what we're doing. we're not. important you know we knowthat we don't know, but there are certain thingswe know for certain. we provide aid andexpertise specifically to address the gaps in opportunity for women. expanding access to capitalfor women entrepreneurs , promoting education for girls in stem fields - science, technology, engineering, mathematics.
encouraging public private partnershipslike the spark initiative which has already spurred more than $1 billion of globalentrepreneurship funds with a focus on women and young people. our team at the united nations launched a campaign to build public pressure and support for the release of female prisoners around the world.
when we were unable topass the international violence against women act, which i wrote when i was asenator, president obama decided we can't wait in the congress. we should have passed it awhile ago. through executive action, he developedand implemented a global strategy to prevent andrespond to gender based violence around the worldand much, much more to do. much more to do.
but the first thing in solving the problem is recognizing what the problem is. and for the first time,there's a global strategy to empower adolescent girls,a goal to help them have access to education and thenstay in secondary school so that we better outcomesfor the rest of our lives. i'm heading the programat the request of the president for $750 millionin central america. one of the major initiativesin that program, which provide
education, not just to young boys but to young girls as well. we're working to reduce the rates of female genital mutilation in ghana. we've created accountability initiative to fight impunity for sexual violence in the democratic republic ofcongo and central africa, the central african republic, and liberia. my wife jill, who travelsaround the world speaking
to these issues as well,she traveled across asia and south america and africa,gone to places i haven't been to, seen with her own eyesthe challenges women face. and by the way when she goes,she brings our granddaughters. but you say, "why would you do that?" by the way, our granddaughters, my daughter and one of the participants here daughter were born really close to one another. we made friends.
now our granddaughters travel with jill. they travel with jill because we want them to see, we want them to understand, we want them to feel, taste, feel in their bones what their responsibility is. two years ago she visit ponzi hospital in eastern democratic republic of congo. she and my granddaughter,her name is finnegan biden. don't laugh, it's agood name, we're irish.
she spent time with womenwho were being treated for unspeakable sexual assaultsthey suffer from for still. they've been mutilated. i remember my granddaughter, 17 years old, coming home and saying, "pop, how can that happen to tens ofthousands of people?" but i don't think i'll ever forget hearing jill and my granddaughter telling the story about sitting holding the
hands of a young girl, only six years old, who had been similarly brutalized. kathy, you remember. you were there with jill. so we all know we have so, so much more to do. but it's within our power,it's within our capacity. i believe and presidentobama believes it is critical to pull back theugly mask, to expose the inhumanity, the ugly waywomen are treated both
here in the united statesand around the world. and we make no apologiesfor it, none whatsoever. when i meet with the heads of state or countries i say so, so does the president. because it's the right thing to do. it's not moralizing, it's just simply basically the right thing to do. in fact, years ago wheni wrote the violence against women act, setting up shelters for
abused women right herein the united states who referred to biden'sindoctrination centers. they were indoctrinatingwomen to be feminists. we tried before to not much avail. but i was convinced as i'mconvinced about all of you, as you pull back this maskand expose the ugliness, you can force a peopleand a country to own up to what's happening because intheir gut they know better. in their gut.
it's a human instinct. we had to get people here to see violence against women for what it was. it was referred to as a private matter. a private matter. it was a nationwide scourge. in english we have an expression when you want to estimate something. you say, "well, the rule of thumb is."
in our anglo saxon system, you know where that phraserule of thumb comes from? back in the 1300s, so many men were beating their wives so badly women were dying at a rate that exceeded what they thought was appropriate. the courts of common law,which is our tradition, set a rule that no man
could beat his wife with a stick larger than the circumference of his thumb. deeply embedded in our culture, our anglo culture, was the right to treat a woman likeshe were your property, like cattle or sheep. look, when we forced everyone here to look at something affected and continues to affect women of all ages backgrounds and
beliefs, that's whenthings begin to change. because ultimately wehave to change culture. americans, they didn't want to face. you know, like plausible deniability. i don't want to see, it's ugly. but we had brave women testify on national television time and time again. no one could deny. last week here in washington, i spoke at a
conference of i think itwas close to 2,000 women. end violence against women international conference it was called. and i want to make the same points i made their in conclusion. i said i believe that ourcountries, all of our countries, will ultimately be judgedon how civilized they are. and the ultimate judgmentof their civilization, how civilized they are, is the waythey treat women and girls.
that's why the moment i entered politics, i worked to make sure my daughters and my granddaughters had every single solitary opportunity my sons and grandsons have. we're not quite there yetbut the ambassador, me, the president, thesecretary, we're not gonna settle until it happensbecause there's not a single thing a womancannot do given a chance. even if you have to seize that chance for
sheer force of will, like all of you have. every time i sit across the table from a woman who's fighting against seemingly impossible odds, i recognize the same fire and passion, the resolve. like iron tempered inthe heat of adversity. it's the same no matterwhere i am in the world. you'll see it here today not just with the honorees but everyoneelse in this audience.
just look around. fatima mata, i hope i pronounced that correctly, was thrown in prison three times for working to defend human rights of her fellow mauritanians. but still, she emerges that, "the value of a human being is everything." latifa, who suffered the worst loss a parent can face, the loss of a son to a terrorist attack.
even though her son wore the uniform of an adopted country, a french soldier, latifa herself suffered the indignity of being tossed in jail as a terrorist. and still she channeled her grief not into vengeance but in fighting the forces of alienation extremism, the drive terrorism that took her son's life. thelma, who through ceaseless
determination in years of night school rose from a janitor ina local family court to the attorney general of guatemala. and still, she doesn't hesitate to prosecute corruption in the very president who appointed her. it's good to see you again, thelma. and i'm so deeply honored to be here with so many you of heroes.
let me end where i began,with a heartfelt thank you. thank you for my daughter, for my four granddaughters, and formy son, and my grandson. thank you for all you do because none of what you do will be in vain. to paraphrase dr. king, written in the carpet of the president's oval office, "the arc of history bends towards justice," and you're bending it.
if we're ever going to be involved in the endeavors you're involvedin, now is the moment. we are at an inflectionpoint in human history. and your hands are on the wheel. it can bend just a littlebit to change the lives of millions of women andmen because the simple but profound truth ishuman progress is in peril where ever women are not treated equally. we can't advance if half the
population is denied basic dignity. it holds us all back. so, thank you for your courage. and as you keep fighting,know that the united states of america will continueto stand alongside you. as my mother would say,"god love you, you're doing god's work." thank you so very much. i'm gonna get in trouble with you. thank you, kathy, forallowing me to be here.
- okay, well that was quitea way to end this day. he's disruptive but it's okay when you're the vice president. any case, thank you verymuch, mr. vice president. that was incredibly rewarding for you to talk to this group of amazing awardees. for me personally obviously, it is important because he's been such an incredible role model to me over in my
career and i really appreciate that. it illustrates the importance of men really being a part of this conversation and i think we can't ever forget how important that is. the point i want to just make in closing is that leadership matters here. u.s. government leadership matters. i find when i travel around the
world that people look to the united states, they care what we're doing, they care what we think. they don't always agree with us certainly, but they're interested. i think we need to take that responsibility seriously and we also need to take that opportunity seriously and try to make the most of it.
but i thought susanna made areally wonderful point this morning when she said thateach of us, whether you're a leader, whether you're aregular person, whether you're a lawyer or not, each of us hassome way to contribute here. and i think in honor of you and all of the amazing work that you have done as women of courage, all of us need to recommit ourselves to that. so, thank you all so much for the
courageous work that you do. and thank you to all of youfor being here today with us. we really appreciate it. (jazz music)
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