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Nobel Peace Prize Leymah Gbowee with Ombudsman Raúl Lamberto
The Ombudsman of the Province of Santa Fe, Raúl Lamberto, together with the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Ricardo Silberstein, the President of the Supreme Court of the Province, María Angélica Gastaldi, and the Ombudsman of Children and Adolescents, Analía Colombo, received in Rosario Nobel Peace Prize winner, Leyma Gbowee, with whom they shared a meeting last Friday, 31st of March 2019, in the city of Rosario. Leyma is a Liberian activist who led the peace movement that put an end to the second Liberian civil war in 2003. "We are very happy to have materialized this meeting because the experiences lived by Ms Leyma are very intense and courageous and we were all able to learn something from her".
On this occasion Ms Leyma referred to the current situation in Argentina and said: "I think it's wonderful the enthusiasm I see in young women to defend their rights, to join the struggle of feminism", adding: "It's something that I see not only here, but it is happening all over the world. In my country there is a lot of enthusiasm among young women to fight for justice and for peace".
The Nobel Prize winner further said: "I have been working for 25 years to achieve justice for women. Personally, I am a survivor of the war, a survivor of domestic violence and have worked all these years using the platform of peace and security".
In this regard, she added: "We started being only five people from our community, five young women that I saw every day and I saw that they were very scared, so one day I called them and I told them what's wrong? They told me that they suffered a lot of pressure from their parents and from the men of the community because they wanted them to have a boyfriend and that they started having sex. All of this happened in the middle of the war”. Ms Leyma continued: "Then I started to talk to them and I decided to be their protector. There were many people in my community who were afraid of me. What I did was to take these five young people under my wing and I began to teach them, to tell them about the integrity of their bodies, about the need to educate themselves and to become their own leaders. That put me on the path to start working for women's rights".
By way of closing, Leyma said: "I work all over the world and in Argentina the problems I find are the same as everywhere: domestic violence, rape, single mothers, homes with only one person in their care. The difference between one country and another is the magnitude of the problem. I consider myself a citizen of the world and where I see injustice I use my voice to try to avoid it".
The Secretary of International Relations and Integration of the province, María Julia Reyna, also participated in the meeting; the benchmark of the Social Economic Council of the Municipality of Rosario, Silvia Levín; the citizen's assistance coordinator of the Ombudsman's Office, Eleonora Avilés; and the referencers of the local culture, Rubén Chababo and Hugo Quiroga.
Source: Defensoría del Pueblo de la Provincia de Santa Fe, Argentina
