11. Wangari Maathai
Getty Images / Peter Macdiarmid
Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt movement in Kenya in 1977, which has planted more than 10 million trees to prevent soil erosion and provide firewood for cooking fires. Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to be named a Nobel Peace Laureate, honored "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace."
12. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Getty Images / Chris Hondros
Nobel Peace Prize, 2011 (shared)
Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded to three women "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work," with the head of the Nobel committee saying "We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society" (Thorbjorn Jagland). Liberian President Eln Johnson Sirleaf was one. Born in Monrovia, she studied economics, including study in the United States, culminating in a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard. A part of government from 1972 and 1973 and 1978 to 1980, she escaped assassination during a coup, and finally fled to the U.S. in 1980. She has worked for private banks as well as for the World Bank and the United Nations. After losing in the 1985 elections, she was arrested and imprisoned and fled for the U.S. in 1985. She ran against Charles Taylor in 1997, fleeing again when she lost, then after Taylor was ousted in a civil war, won the 2005 presidential election, and has been widely recognized for her attempts to heal the divisions within Liberia.
13. Leymah Gbowee
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Nobel Peace Prize, 2011 (shared)
Leymah Roberta Gbowee was honored for her work for peace within Liberia. Herself a mother, she worked as a counselor with former child soldiers after the First Liberian Civil War. In 2002, she organized women across Christian and Muslim lines to pressure both factions for peace in the Second Liberian Civil War, and this peace movement helped to bring to an end that war.
14. Tawakul Karman
Nobel Peace Prize, 2011 (shared)
Tawakul Karman, a young Yemeni activist, was one of three women (the other two from Liberia) awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. She has organized protests within Yemen for freedom and human rights, heading the organization, Women Journalists Without Chains. Using nonviolence to fuel the movement, she has strongly urged the world to see that fighting terrorism and religious fundamentalism in Yemen (where al-Qaeda is a presence) means working to end poverty and increase human rights -- including women's rights -- rather than backing an autocratic and corrupt central government.
