Women fight for rights in the Americas

• About the recipients of the 2006 Gruber Prize for Women’s Rights

• Past winners of the Prize

• Women's Rights Advisory Board

• About the Foundation

The winners of the 2006 Gruber Prize for Women’s Rights are:

• Unión Nacional de Mujeres Guatemaltecas (UNAMG), a Guatemalan women’s rights organization - represented by Luz Mendez.

• Sweatshop Watch, a California-based coalition fighting against exploitation of migrants in sweatshops, represented by Julie Su

• Chilean jurist Cecilia Medina Quiroga, the only woman judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The two organizations and Judge Medina each receive a gold medal and a third of the $300,000 unrestricted cash award.

“In the United States it’s easy to think that the fight for women’s rights is won,” says Peter Gruber, Chairman of the Peter Gruber Foundation. “In fact, in the US and across the Americas, the fight is far from over. This year we recognize women and organizations who are working at the front line – sometimes at great personal risk – to sustain and build women’s rights in the Americas.”

Founded in 1980, UNAMG is one of the oldest women’s rights organizations in Guatemala and was forced to operate in exile overseas for many years due to political repression. It resumed working in Guatemala in 1996 under the guidance of Luz Méndez, but Amnesty International recently warned that it “fears for the safety” of individuals involved in women’s rights organizations in Guatemala.

Sweatshop Watch is a California-based organization committed to eliminating exploitation of sweatshop workers. Julie Su, a co-founder of Sweatshop Watch, successfully defended 72 Thai garment workers who were discovered working behind barbed wire and under armed guard in 1995 following a raid on a California sweatshop. Since then, Sweatshop Watch, in collaboration with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, has brought cases on behalf of hundreds of workers against major corporations who use sweatshops to manufacture the garments they sell.

Chilean jurist Cecilia Medina Quiroga, the only woman judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, is one of the most prominent human rights jurists in Latin America. She was author of the groundbreaking Comment 28 of the Human Rights Committee of the UN. The comment calls for nations to “not only adopt measures of protection for women’s rights, but also to take positive measures so as to achieve the effective and equal empowerment of women.” Quiroga is now working to integrate these principles in mainstream international law.

“The prize honors those who have made significant contributions, often at great risk, to furthering the rights of women and girls and advancing public awareness of the necessity of these rights in achieving a just world,” says Peter Gruber.

The Peter Gruber Foundation was founded in 1993 and established the first of its international prizes in 2000. The Foundation now supports five international awards: Cosmology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Justice and Women’s Rights.

The 2006 Cosmology Prize was presented in August to NASA’s John Mather and the COBE team. The Justice Prize was awarded in September to Aharon Barak, recently retired President of the Supreme Court of Israel. The Genetics and Neuroscience Prizes were awarded in October: Genetics to Elizabeth Blackburn for her work on cell aging and telomeres, and her science advocacy; and Neuroscience to Masao Ito and Roger Nicoll for their contributions to revealing the biological bases of learning and memory.

Contact Niall Byrne: niall@scienceinpublic.com, +1 314 448 9909 (US cell till 11 Nov 06), +61 417 131 977 (Australian cell) or Sarah Hrehra, +1 340 775 8039. Background information and photos at www.scienceinpublic.com.

Women fight for rights in the Americas

 

	US attorney Julie Su, Litigation Director for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, is a co-founder of Sweatshop Watch, a California-based organization committed to: eliminating the exploitation that occurs in sweatshops; eliminating the illegal and inhumane conditions that characterize sweatshops; encouraging corporations to accept responsibility for the places where their products are made. Sweatshop Watch is a coalition of labor, community, civil rights, immigrant rights, women's, religious and student organizations, and individuals. Over the past decade, Sweatshop Watch, in collaboration with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, has brought cases on behalf of hundreds of low-wage, immigrant, often undocumented women in the garment industry, against major corporations who use sweatshops to manufacture the garments they sell. These workers are all Latino or Asian immigrants.
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They have launched several public policy advocacy campaigns including ones to hold manufacturers and retailers responsible for the working conditions of the women and men who make the clothes they sell. Su, a graduate of Stanford and Harvard universities, became a champion for the rights of immigrant sweatshop employees after defending 72 Thai garment workers who were discovered working behind barbed wire and under armed guard in 1995 following a raid on a California sweatshop. Su represented them in their successful fight for compensation from the manufacturers and retailers for whom they sewed and in obtaining legal immigration status in the U.S. The official citation recognizes Su and Sweatshop Watch, “for giving visibility and voice to the economic and political rights of migrant and undocumented workers in the United States.” Full press release here.

 

Chilean judge the Honorable Cecilia Medina Quiroga is one of the most prominent human rights jurists in Latin America. The only woman judge on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which works to apply and interpret the American Convention on Human Rights, Medina Quiroga has also spent eight years as a member of the Human Rights Committee of the UN. While chairing the committee in 2000, she authored its groundbreaking general comment 28 on Article 3 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights dealing with the equal rights of men and women. The comment calls for nations to not only adopt measures of protection, but also to take positive measures so as to achieve the effective and equal empowerment of women. Today Quiroga is working to educate lawyers in human rights law and the way women’s human rights should be integrated in the mainstream of international law. She organizes a postgraduate course for lawyers on women's human rights at the Human Rights Center of the Faculty of Law, University of Chile. She is also working to apply these ideals at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. With a master’s degree from the University of Chile and a doctorate in law from the University of Utrecht in Holland, Medina Quiroga has lectured widely on human rights law, including in Chile – where she is a Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Chile, the US – at Harvard Law School where she was a visiting Professor, and in Holland and Sweden. Medina Quiroga was born in Conception, Chile, in 1935. The official citation celebrates Medina Quiroga for “advancing the rights of women through the framework of international law.” Full press release here.