Meaza Ashenafi

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Meaza Ashenafi at a conference

Meaza Ashenafi ( Amharic መዓዛ አሸናፊ ; * 1964 in Assosa , Benishangul-Gumuz , Ethiopia ) is an Ethiopian women's rights activist.

She is the founder of the Ethiopian Woman Lawyers Association of the United National Economic Commission for Africa , advisor to the United Nations on women's rights issues , one of the founders of the Enat Bank and winner of the Africa Price for Leadership (advertised by 'the Hunger Project') in 2003 nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize . On November 1, 2018, she became the first woman to hold the chairmanship of the Supreme Court of Ethiopia.

Life

Meaza Ashenafi grew up 800 kilometers from Addis Ababa , in Assoa, a remote area in western Ethiopia , with four brothers and four sisters. Her mother's progressive thinking and acting enabled her to attend school and, thanks to her education, advocate women's rights and gender equality. She married Araya Asfaw, with whom she has two daughters.

Act

She attended Assosa Elementary School and Assosa High School . In 1981 she began studying at Addis Ababa University . From 1986 she studied law at the Addis Ababa University School of Law . With the support of UNESCO ’s Chair of Human Rights , she completed a master’s degree in International Relations with a diploma in Women's Studies at the University of Connecticut in 2005 . In her master's thesis in the field of social sciences in 2006, she worked on the topic of 'women as public decision-makers'.

Ashenafi worked on the Ethiopian constitution , which the country got in 1995 after years of monarchy, communist rule and subsequent civil war, and ensured that women in Ethiopia are now legally equal.

For the parliamentary elections in Ethiopia in 2000 , she supported 30 women in the candidacy for a seat in parliament in cooperation with EWLA ( Ethiopian Woman Lawyers Association ). Although none of the women won a seat in this election, their candidacy brought attention to issues of equality and participation. Ashenafi is co-founder of Enat-Bank (July 2011). Of the 7,000 partners, 64% are women. The bank's focus is on loans to women entrepreneurs in developing countries.

Honors

  • 2003 Africa Prize for Leadership by the Hunger Project , based in New York, USA
  • 2005 Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her commitment to women's rights

media

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Meaza Ashenafi Mengistu on ethioscoop.com, article by Nassir Mohammed from August 15, 2013 (English)
  2. ↑ https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/01/africa/ethiopia-first-woman-supreme-court-head-intl/index.html
  3. ↑ Meaza Ashenafi ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on equalitynow.org (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.equalitynow.org
  4. ↑ Meaza Ashenafi from Ethiopia is the model for the film "The Girl Hirut" on tagblatt.de, article by Ulla Steuerungagel from November 23, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Ashenafi, Meaza
ALTERNATIVE NAMES መዓዛ አሸናፊ (Amharic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Ethiopian women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Assosa , Benishangul-Gumuz , Ethiopia