Meet the nominees of L'Oreal Paris FEMINA WOMEN AWARDS 2014: SOCIAL IMPACT.
In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, alcoholism and drug addiction in Nagaland had shaped into an uncontrollable menace. Neidonuo felt very strongly that mothers suffer the most in conflict situations, and that there ought to be a common platform for them. So in 1984, she went on to become one of the founding mothers of the Naga Mothers Association. In her association with the NMA, she has founded many other establishments: the NMA Youth and Women Welfare Organization (1986), to fight drug abuse and trafficking, alcoholism, and HIV/AIDS; Mt Gilead Home (1989), a rehabilitation centre for drug addicts and alcoholics; the NMA HIV/AIDS Care Hospice (2001); an income-generation paper recycling project. She also launched the Shed No More Blood campaign, which led to a meeting between various Naga underground groups and the NMA.
Neidonuo and her colleagues often virtually inserted themselves between warring factions and risked becoming victims. These trust-building meetings have helped the government and the underground leaders to keep extending the ceasefire. Also, at a time when unidentified dead bodies were growing in numbers, the NMA worked alongside government agencies to prepare coffins and burial grounds. In 2000, the government conferred Neidonuo with the Padmashree.
Meet the nominees of L'Oreal Paris FEMINA WOMEN AWARDS 2014: SOCIAL IMPACT.
In her 35 year-long career with the Indian Police Force, Kiran Bedi influenced several major decisions, especially in the areas of narcotics control, traffic management, and VIP security. During her stint as the IG of Prisons, she instituted a number of reforms for the inmates of Tihar jail, including yoga, vipassana, literacy and meditation courses. She has worked with UN as the Police Advisor to the Secretary General in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and also represented Indian in international forums on crime prevention, drug abuse, police and prison reforms and women’s issues.
Bedi is the founder of two NGOs, Navjyoti and India Vision Foundation, which reach out to thousands of underprivileged children, women and men in the areas of education, vocational skills, environment and healthcare. The 64-year-old has been voted as India’s most admired woman (The Week, 2002), MSN Most Admired Indian Female Icon 2011, and among the top 10 women icons of 2013 by The Economic Times. She is also a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
Meet the nominees of L'Oreal Paris FEMINA WOMEN AWARDS 2014: SOCIAL IMPACT.
Vrinda Grover, a lawyer in the Delhi High Court, played a significant role in the implementation of Justice Verma’s recommendations in a law against sexual violence. Her research and writing inquires into the role of law in the subordination of women; the failure of the criminal justice system during communal violence; the rights of undocumented workers; and the challenges confronting internally displaced persons. She has contributed to the drafting of the 2013 Criminal Law Amendment to the law against sexual assault; The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012; the Prevention of Torture Bill, 2010; a law for protection from Communal and Targeted Violence.
An independent expert with the Working Group on Human Rights, Vrinda also works in other areas of human rights violations, including the anti-Sikh riots. In 2010, she was part of an independent fact-finding team that went to the Kashmir valley to inquire into the causes for the unconscionably large number of deaths in the valley. Last year, 50-year-old Vrinda made it to TIME’s list of 100 Most Influential People for 2013.
Meet the nominees of L'Oreal Paris FEMINA WOMEN AWARDS 2014: SOCIAL IMPACT.
Ruchira Gupta, founder president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, has worked for 25 years for women’s and girls’ rights, especially the ending of sex trafficking. She founded Apne Aap in 2002, a grassroots organisation working on the issue of human trafficking and women’s rights. She testified in the US Senate before the passage of Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 2000. Her testimony fuelled the government to introduce a legislation that would become the first law in the US that seeks to combat the forcible trafficking of persons.
She also lobbied for the formulation of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children resulting in the first UN instrument to address demand in the context of trafficking. Currently she is lobbying for a change in the Indian anti-trafficking law, Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) for more severe punishment of buyers of prostituted sex and traffickers who profit from it. Ruchira has worked for over 10 years in Nepal, Thailand, Philippines, Kosovo, USA, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia and Iran. In some of these countries she has helped to develop National Action Plans on women’s empowerment and laws against human trafficking.
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