By Ayushi Agarwal
Tampere [Finland], December 12 : Finland, on Monday, awarded the International Gender Equality Prize for 2023 to an NGO in Afghanistan that works to promote and protect the rights of women in Afghanistan. The organisation Afghan Women Skills Development Center does important humanitarian work to promote the safety of Afghan women.
Ever since the Taliban came into power, Afghanistan is an example of a country where women's human rights are systematically suppressed and girls have been denied access to secondary education and women to higher education.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo attended the ceremony and presented the EUR 300,000 Prize to the organisation's representative, Mahbouba Seraj, in Tampere.
In 2021, the Prize was awarded to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, an organisation that does groundbreaking work combating violence against women in Turkey and whose work has global relevance.
In 2019, the Prize went to Equality Now, a global non-profit organisation, which defends the rights of women and has succeeded in changing discriminatory laws and ossified practices in different countries.
While In 2017, the Prize was awarded to then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She directed the prize money to a Nigerien organisation that works to stop domestic violence. The organisation decided to use the funds to build a residential shelter for women.
Speaking during the ceremony, the Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo reiterated his support for Afghan women.
"Finland has strongly supported gender equality and women's rights in Afghanistan for 20 years. Even today, we continue to provide this important support as widely as possible in the current situation. Finland will not forget Afghan women," said Orpo during his speech.
The task of the Afghan Women Skills Development Center is to provide Afghan women with training and to support their skills development and economic empowerment. The organisation operates in eight provinces around the country.
It cooperates with the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, and the purpose of this cooperation is, first and foremost, to provide protection to women and families who are in danger. Women can, for example, bring their children to have a medical examination or spend time with them at small family centres. At these centres, the organisation also provides women with humanitarian assistance, such as food, hygiene products and money.
"With the money made possible by this, I am going to go back home and I am going to spend it on a project that is going to take all of those women involved and I am going to make sure that they all know this award was given to me by one of the most amazing countries in the world that has gender equality as the first order of its government," Seraj said after accepting the award.
Finland was one of the first countries in the world to extend the right to vote and stand for elections to all women and men in 1906. Finland was also the first country to elect women to Parliament; 19 women were elected to the 200-seat Parliament in 1907. The success of Finland as a country is to a great extent linked with improvements in the status of women and gender equality.
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