Lviv human rights defender receives Olof Palme Award

The Olof Palme Prize is awarded annually for outstanding achievements in human rights activities. Feminist, gender expert and psychologist from Lviv, deputy head and project manager of the Women's Perspectives Center Marta Chumalo (far left in the photo) became the first Ukrainian woman to win this prestigious award.

As the winner told Espreso.West, she was nominated for the award by the Swedish partner organization Kvinna till Kvinna ("Woman to Women"), which is engaged in the protection of women's rights in areas of armed conflicts: “Last month, my colleagues and I visited Sweden, spoke in their parliament, and had a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and representatives of Sida (Swedish Agency for International Cooperation and Development). At the same time, I also had a meeting with the son of Olof Palme, a Swedish politician and statesman, in whose memory this prize was founded. He informed me that I was among the three laureates of this year's award. In addition to me, Turkish human rights defender Eren Keskin (in the photo - in the middle) and Iranian journalist Narges Mohammadi (in the photo - far right) will also receive it.”

“Because of the war, I am now attached to Ukraine in a special way. This is how the stars met - I don't think that at any other time I could have received this award. As a rule, the feminist human rights movement remains in the shadows,” Marta Chumalo states. As one of the founders of the Women's Perspectives Center, she has been supporting women who have experienced violence for 25 years. Since 2014 (especially after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022), Marta has been actively involved in raising awareness about the effects of war and helping victims. In particular, it actively lobbies for the effective implementation of the Istanbul Convention in order to support victims of sexualized violence in the war.

The award consists of a diploma and USD 100,000. This amount will be divided between three laureates.

The official award ceremony will take place on February 1 in the Stockholm Concert Hall, the same place where the Nobel Prize is awarded.

Previously, the Olof Palme Award was received by the first president of the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, Russian opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya, one of the world's most outstanding diplomats and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan, Sarajevo students, UN peacekeeping forces and the international anti-racist Black Lives Matter movement.