Zainab Hawa Bangura

Zainab Bangura (2013)

Zainab Hawa Bangura , née Zainab Hawa Sesay (born December 18, 1959 in Yonibana, Tonkolili District , Northern Province ) is a Sierra Leonean politician .

biography

Study and start of political activity

Zainab Bangura came from a simple rural family from the ethnic group of the Temne and Mathora Girls was due to a promotion after primary school from 1971 to 1976 Secondary School visit and later the Annie Walsh Memorial Girls Secondary School (AWMS) in Freetown , which she finished in 1979 . After graduating from Fourah Bay College (FBC) , she studied in the UK at Nottingham University Business School and City University London , where she earned degrees in insurance . Upon her return, she initially worked as an insurance broker for the National Insurance Company before later moving to Reliance Insurance Trust Corporation (RITCORP), where she was eventually promoted to Vice President. While working in the insurance industry, she also met Ernest Koroma , who was temporarily President of RITCORP.

During the rule of the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) under Captain Valentine Strasser , she began her political career as a social activist in the group of market women. In 1994 she founded Woman Organized for a Morally Enlighted Nation (WOMEN), the first group for women's rights in the country outside of civil war and partisan groups. A year later she was one of the founders of the Campaign for Good Government (CGG) and used it as her campaign platform for the national elections announced for 1996, which eventually led to the loss of power of the NPRC and the restoration of democratic government. The 1996 elections were the first democratic elections since 1971.

During the civil war in Sierra Leone , which lasted until 2002 , she spoke out several times against the acts of violence by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh against the civilian population and was therefore a number of times the victim of attacks by this group. She also spoke several times against the corruption within the civil government under President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the misdeeds of government forces against civilians.

Presidential candidate and foreign minister

In the presidential elections on May 14, 2002 she was a candidate for the opposition to the incumbent President Kabbah and thus left her role as a social activist outside of the civil war parties for the first time. However, there was an overwhelming election victory for Kabbah, which received 70.1 percent of the vote while it itself received less than 1 percent. Their Movement for Progress also failed to get any of the 112 seats in parliament. She justified the poor performance of her party with corruption in the electoral system. After the 2002 elections, she was the founder of the National Accountability Group (NAG), which set itself the task of fighting corruption in the administration and promoting transparency and responsible behavior in government.

She left Sierra Leone in 2006 after being appointed director of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) Civil Rights Office . In this position she was responsible for rebuilding 16 ministries and 30 government agencies in the neighboring country destroyed by the civil war between 1989 and 2003.

After Ernest Koroma was elected and he was sworn in as president on September 17, 2007, she returned. On October 23, 2007, she was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation by President Koroma, making her the second woman to hold this post after Shirley Gbujama . She is a member of President Koroma's 24-member cabinet. During the cabinet reshuffle in 2010, she moved from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of Health.

Time after the government

On June 22, 2012, she was appointed Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict by Ban Ki Moon . In this position, she was replaced on April 12, 2017 by Pramila Patten from Mauritius .

Awards

She has received several awards for her commitment to democracy and human rights in Africa , including:

• "African International Award of Merit for Leadership", Nigeria , 1999
• "Human Rights Award", (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), New York City , 2000
• " Bayard Rustin Humanitarian Award" ( A. Philip Randolph -Institut), Washington, DC , 2002
• "Democracy Award" ( National Endowment for Democracy ), Washington, DC, 2006

Talk

• "Building Democracy for Peace, Development, and Human Rights," World Movement for Democracy, 3rd Assembly

Web links

Commons : Zainab Hawa Bangura  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• A profile of Sierra Leone's Zainab Bangura
• Biography of Mrs. Zainab Hawa Bangura
• The Iron Lady Called Zainab Bangura
• Sierra Leone at a glance
• Information in rulers.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kabinett Koroma ( Memento of the original dated August 28, 2008 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.  
2. ↑ Sierra Express Media ( Memento of the original from January 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ^ Zainab Hawa Bangura, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Retrieved September 29, 2015 . 
4. ↑ NED Donates Founding papers to the Library of Congress. Congressional Leaders Praise NED ( Memento of the original from March 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.