'The 2021 laureates of the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights', 10 December 2021

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On 10 December, international Human Rights Day, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and French Foreign Minister Jean‑Yves Le Drian presented fifteen people with the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights. This award recognises the efforts of all those who work tirelessly every day to advance the causes of human rights and the rule of law. It is presented decentralised by the French and German missions in various locations around the world.

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Shaharzad Akbar is an Afghan human rights defender who campaigns in particular for the rights of women in Afghanistan ... focused on the inclusion of women, young people and civil society in the peace process and on the investigation of serious rights violations...

Chang Weiping is a Chinese human rights lawyer. He has been in detention once again since 22 October 2020. Chang has primarily worked to advocate LGBTI rights and fight discrimination against women and HIV‑positive people...

Jacques Letang is a trained judge and lawyer in Haiti, where he campaigns for human rights and the rule of law ... [and] has led a legal team which has facilitated the release of over 150 arbitrarily detained people, supported hundreds of victims of gender-based violence and handled symbolic cases of human rights violations such as the La Saline massacre.

Cristina Palabay from the Philippines has led the national association Karapatan, which brings together human rights defenders and organisations, since 2010. Palabay and her association support victims in court and fight against restrictions on civil liberties by the Duterte government...

Noelah Godfrey Msuya promotes the rights of children and women in Tanzania... She and her organisation are dedicated to enabling disadvantaged and disabled children to receive an education...

Erika Lorena Aifán Dávila has been a judge in Guatemala for over 19 years and as a criminal judge of the first instance of a high-risk court for over five years, dealing with cases of serious crimes committed by entrepreneurs, civil servants, judges and drug traffickers...

Monika Borgmann is a German-Lebanese documentary-maker who founded the company UMAM Productions with her husband Lokman Slim in 2001... Most recently she has focused her efforts on the MENA Prison Forum, which calls attention to inhumane conditions in detention in the Middle East...

Narges Mohammadi campaigns against capital punishment and against sexualised violence in Iranian prisons... This May, she was sentenced to 30 months in prison and 80 lashes...

Nebahat Akkoç has dedicated herself entirely to human rights work since her husband was murdered in 1993. She founded the women’s rights organisation Kamer in 1997. It is based in Diyarbakır and primarily campaigns to stop violence against women...

PROVEA is a Venezuelan NGO which has been advocating human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural human rights, since 1988. It is based in Caracas and provides legal counsel to human rights defenders and NGOs as part of its work... Its ... coordinator Rafael Uzcátegui has already been detained on multiple occasions.

Jake Epelle works to combat the ongoing stigmatisation and discrimination faced by people with albinism in Nigeria, with the help of an organisation founded in 2006 called The Albino Foundation...

Alexandrine Victoire Saizonou is an advocate for women’s and children’s rights in Benin. In 2013 she founded an association for women lawyers which provides support and legal advice free of charge to women and children who have been victims of sexualised violence...

Tabelo Timse is receiving the prize for her outstanding work as a member of an independent non‑profit media centre in South Africa. As an investigative journalist, she works with her colleagues to report on the influence exerted on the state by private interest groups as well as mismanagement and state failures in the provision of public goods.

Ajna Jusic from Bosnia discovered at the age of 15 that she was born as a result of rape during wartime, and since then she has advocated for others in the same situation. In 2015, with the support of a therapist, she set out to find other young people who were also “children of war”, and founded an organisation to combat discrimination against them...

May Sabe Phyu has been the director of the Gender Equality Network in Myanmar since 2014... to prevent violence against women. May Sabe Phyu works to promote confidence-building across different ethnic groups and to improve the circumstances of ethnic minorities in the country...