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Amat al Aleem Ali Alsoswa

Political Participation Award, 2004

Amat
Yemen

Focus Areas

Women's Political Participation

Trailblazer, mold-breaker, pioneer, Amat al Aleem Ali Alsoswa is a driving force for women’ s leadership in Yemen. Throughout her career, she has been the first — and often only — woman in key positions of influence in the government and private sector. She was her country’ s first celebrated female TV announcer, its first female ambassador, and its first female permanent undersecretary to the Ministry of Information.

Now, as Yemen’ s first-ever Minister of Human Rights, she is helping enhance the rights and freedoms of all her fellow citizens and to promote her country’ s democratic development. As Alsoswa has said, “The initiative to correct what is wrong comes from within.”

Among her many important governmental positions, Alsoswa has been chairwoman for the Women’ s National Committee and the Women’ s Sector for the People’ s General Congress. In addition, she served as Yemen’ s Representative to the Organization of Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and headed the Yemeni delegation to the 39th session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. She also has been an advisor to the United Nations Development Programme for Gender and Poverty Alleviation, a faculty member at Sana’ a University, and chief editor for Mutaba’ at I’ elamiah magazine.

Before rising in the ranks of the General People’ s Congress, Amat Al aleem Ali Alsoswa was a journalist, radio announcer and news anchor. She earned her B.A. in Mass Communication at Cairo University in Egypt and her M.A. in International Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. She has a daughter and a son.