First Lady Honors Women of Courage


Thirteen Women of Courage from South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East were honored personally by first lady Melania Trump in the Department of State’s Dean Acheson Auditorium — packed with diplomats, women activists, friends and the media — yesterday morning, March 29.

The women’s horrendous stories of acid attacks, imprisonment and violence to themselves and their families were almost unbearable to hear. Their nearly incredible sagas of how those personal horrors led them to fight to change laws, cultures and centuries of tradition in their homelands were deservedly called truly inspiring.

As they heard the stories, undoubtedly many in the audience were asking themselves the question the first lady articulated in her remarks: “Would you have the fortitude of spirit, the courage of your convictions and the enormous inner strength required to stand up and fight against such overwhelming odds?”

“I was reborn from the ashes,” recounted Natalia Ponce de Leon of Columbia. In March of 2014, a stalker threw a liter of sulfuric acid on her face and body. Instead of keeping to her bed and isolating herself, she told how she battled successfully to establish burn units throughout Columbia with appropriate medical and psychological training and services. National legislation named for her was passed, substantially increasing the penalties for attacks using chemical agents.

Malebogo Molefhe of Botswana spoke from her wheelchair about how in 2009, as a national basketball player, her ex-boyfriend shot her eight times, causing permanent spinal cord injuries. She became a vocal advocate against domestic and gender abuse, establishing — through various government and international ministries and organizations — educational programs to combat violence in the home and rehabilitation programs, particularly for women victims.

The first lady bent to hug petite Sharmin Akter of Bangladesh, a high school student at Rajapur Pilot Girls High School. At 15 years of age, she refused to be married to a man decades older than her, advocating for the rights of teenage girls to an education and to choose when to marry (in a country with one of the world’s highest rates of child marriage). She hopes to become a lawyer.

Among the others were women battling for constitutional voting rights for everyone in the Congo and on behalf of the disappeared in Sri Lanka. Others were fighting human trafficking and trauma in Iraq, gender-based violence in Peru and horrendous child abuse in Turkey, Yemen and Syria.

There was Major Aichatou Ousmane Issaka of Niger, one of the first women to join the Army there and part of the United Nations peacekeeping forces, who took on the battle for gender equality in her service deployments; Sister Carolin Tahhan Fachakh of Syria, who daily struggles for the care of displaced women and children, Muslim and Christian; and a civil aviator from Papua New Guinea who shelters and relocates victims of gender-based violence in her country.

Blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh of Vietnam was the only honoree not there; she has been held incommunicado by the government since last October for blogging against censorship.

For the next two weeks, the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage awardees will travel to cities throughout the United States, selected individually for each to meet their professional counterparts and observe U.S. legal, civil and academic institutions that advance gender equality and preserve human rights. Cities include New York, Denver, San Diego, Pensacola, Tampa, Atlanta, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Portland, Pittsburgh and Los Angles. The group will reconvene in Los Angeles at the end of the individual tours.

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