Three women from Liberia and Yemen who are credited with enhancing the role of women in peace work were lauded Saturday at the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo's City Hall, reported dpa.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf; her compatriot Leymah Gbowee; and pro-democracy activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen had shown "the will to act," said Thorbjorn Jagland, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The three each received a diploma and gold medal and were to share the cash prize of 10 million kronor (1.4 million dollars).
Jagland reminded about 1,000 guests, including members of the Norwegian royal family and government, that, "in modern wars, the majority of the victims are often civilian, and very many of them are women and children."
He stressed how rape had become "part of the tactics of war," citing examples from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Darfur (Sudan), Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and how women were often not included in peace talks.
The three laureates, however, represented a positive trend, he said, noting that "women are not only victims. Some take action" just as the 2011 laureates had done.
He mentioned efforts by Johnson-Sirleaf and Gbowee to end the 14-year-long civil war in Liberia, and how Karman had campaigned against Yemen's "President Ali Abdullah Saleh and for democracy, women's rights and tolerance."
"The promising Arab Spring will become a new winter if women are again left out," Jagland cautioned.
The presence of all three laureates was a contrast with last year's ceremony, when an empty chair served as a stark reminder of the absence of jailed Chinese political activist Liu Xiaobo.
The peace prize is one of the awards endowed by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. In accordance with Nobel's will, the peace prize is handed out in Oslo.
The Nobel prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and economics were to be handed out later Saturday in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Each prize is worth 10 million kronor.