Monika Hauser (born 24 May 1959 in Thal, Switzerland) [1] is a Swiss-born Italian physician gynecologist and humanitarian. She is the founder of Medica Mondiale, an internationally renowned women's rights and aid organization. [2] Hauser lives and works in Cologne.
Hauser spent her youth in the Swiss village of Thal, Saint Gallen, in German-speaking Switzerland, before continuing her medical studies in Innsbruck, Austria. [3] She completed her doctorate in medicine in Innsbruck and Bologna in 1984, obtained her German medical licence in 1988 and completed her gynaecological specialization at the Essen University Hospital in 1998. [4]
At the conclusion of her medical studies, Hauser moved to Cologne, where she began working on behalf of female victims of violence in warzones. To this end, she travelled to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Afghanistan, Congo, Liberia and Israel, with the organisation Medica Mondiale, which she founded. [1] [5] In 1993, she set up the first rape crisis centre in Bosnia. [2] She was photographed with a child in her arms who had been born as a result of a wartime rape. That child was Ajna Jusić, [6] and she grew up and became an advocate for others born after rape. She and Hauser were reunited in Sarajevo when Jusić was 25. [6] Ajna Jusić was recognised for her work in 2024. [7]
After her first years in the field, she suffered a mental breakdown in 1995, from which she only recovered after three months. [8]
In 1999, Hauser initiated the project Medica Mondiale Kosova, involving numerous project visits to Albania and Kosovo. In 2000, she assumed the operational leadership of Medica Mondiale. [4]
In 2017, Hauser joined Sima Samar, Gino Strada, Ran Goldstein and Denis Mukwege in signing an open letter published by The Lancet , in which they called on incoming Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom to focus on sexual and gender-based violence. [9]
Hauser received the Right Livelihood Award in 2008 and – together with Asma Jahangir – the North-South Prize of the Council of Europe in 2012 for her work with female victims of violence in conflict zones. [1] In addition, she is the recipient of the following honors:
In 1996, Hauser turned down the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in protest against the government's policy of forced repatriation of Bosnian refugees. [4]
Hauser is married to fellow Medica Mondiale co-founder Klaus-Peter Klauner. [8] The couple has a son and lives in Brühl.
Rosalyn Sussman Yalow was an American medical physicist, and a co-winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for development of the radioimmunoassay technique. She was the second woman, and the first American-born woman, to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Emergency is a humanitarian NGO that provides free medical treatment to the victims of war, poverty, and landmines. It was founded in 1994. Gino Strada, one of the organization's co-founders, served as EMERGENCY's Executive Director. It operates on the premise that access to high-quality healthcare is a fundamental human right.
Gino Strada was an Italian war surgeon, human rights activist, peace activist, and founder of Emergency, a recognized international non-governmental organization.
Aminatou Ali Ahmed Haidar, sometimes known as Aminetou, Aminatu or Aminetu, is a Sahrawi human rights activist and an advocate of the independence of Western Sahara. She is often called the "Sahrawi Gandhi" or "Sahrawi Pasionaria" for her nonviolent protests. She is the president of the Collective of Sahrawi Human Rights Defenders (CODESA). She was imprisoned from 1987 to 1991 and from 2005 to 2006 on charges related to her independence advocacy. In 2009, she attracted international attention when she staged a hunger strike in Lanzarote Airport after being denied re-entry into Moroccan Western Sahara. Haidar has won several international human rights awards for her work, including the 2008 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, 2009 Civil Courage Prize and 2019 Right Livelihood Award.
Grbavica is a 2006 film by Jasmila Žbanić about the life of a single mother in contemporary Sarajevo in the aftermath of systematic rapes of Bosniak women by Serbian soldiers during the Bosnian War. It was released in the United Kingdom as Esma's Secret: Grbavica, and in US as Grbavica: Land of My Dreams.
Pipilotti Elisabeth Rist is a Swiss visual artist best known for creating experimental video art and installation art. Her work is often described as surreal, intimate, abstract art, having a preoccupation with the female body. Her artwork is often categorized as feminist art.
Elinor Catherine Hamlin, AC, FRCS, FRANZCOG, FRCOG was an Australian obstetrician and gynaecologist who, with her husband, New Zealander Reginald Hamlin, co-founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, the world's only medical centre dedicated exclusively to providing free obstetric fistula repair surgery to poor women with childbirth injuries. They also co-founded an associated non-profit organisation, Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia.
Sima Samar is a Hazara woman and human rights advocate, activist and medical doctor within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women's Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. She is the former Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and, from 2005 to 2009, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan. In 2012, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions in the world."
Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor. He founded and works in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where he specializes in the treatment of women who have been raped by armed rebels. In 2018, Mukwege and Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict".
Guo Jianmei is a Chinese lawyer, human rights activist and director of a women's legal aid NGO. In 2005, she was one of 1000 women put forward as nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. Guo is the recipient of the 2010 Simone De Beauvoir Prize and the International Women of Courage Award in 2011. She received the Right Livelihood Award in 2019. She is married to writer Liu Zhenyun.
Sima Wali was one of the foremost Afghan human rights advocates in the world, serving as an international campaigner for the liberties and empowerment of refugee and internally displaced populations. She was the Chief Executive Officer of Refugee Women in Development (RefWID), Inc., a global non-profit organization that advocated for the civil rights of refugee women and girls fleeing from conflict and for their equitable reintegration into their societies. She was also the vice president of the Sisterhood Is Global Institute, the world’s first feminist think tank.
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is a Yazidi human rights activist who lives in Germany. In 2014, she was kidnapped from her hometown Kocho and held by the Islamic State for three months.
Rahel Ava Indermaur is a Swiss opera singer and dramatic soprano. She was the first recipient of the Cantonal Prize for Culture of the Canton of St. Gallen. Indermaur, trained classically in Germany, has performed throughout Europe and in Asia. Her career includes performances with the Berliner Philharmonie, Tonhalle St. Gallen, Tonhalle Zürich, the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
Mozn Hassan is an Egyptian women's rights campaigner. The founder of Nazra for Feminist Studies, she took part in the protests of the Egyptian revolution of 2011 and worked to help those who were sexually assaulted at the time. Since then she successfully campaigned for changes to be made to the Constitution of Egypt and sexual crime laws to safeguard women. Hassan was awarded the Global Fund for Women’s inaugural Charlotte Bunch Human Rights Award in 2013. She also received the Right Livelihood Awards, known as the "alternative Nobel Peace Prize", in 2016. She is currently subject to a travel ban and asset freeze by the Egyptian government for allegedly violating foreign funding laws.
Adela Jušić is a Bosnian contemporary visual artist. She was born in Sarajevo. She is known for her socially engaged art on the subject of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the role of partisan women during the Second World War in Yugoslavia. She has exhibited her works in more than 100 international exhibitions including: Frestas – Trienal de Artes, The Women's Room, Balkan Artist Guild (London), Manifesta 8. (Murcia), ISCP, Videonale (Bonn), Image Counter Image (München). Jušić is a cofounder of the Association for Art and Culture Crvena. Adela Jušić is one of the creators of the online archive of the antifascist struggle of women in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yugoslavia. She lives and works in Sarajevo.
The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict," according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee announcement on 5 October 2018 in Oslo, Norway. "Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes," according to the award citation. After reading the citation, Committee Chair Berit Reiss-Andersen told reporters that the impact of this year's award is to highlight sexual abuse with the goal that every level of governance take responsibility to end such crimes and impunities.
Monika Fleischmann is a German research artist, digital media scientist, and curator of new media art working in art, science, and technology. Since the mid-1980s she has been working collaboratively with the architect Wolfgang Strauss. As part of their research in New Media Art, Architecture, Interface Design and Art Theory, they focus on the concept of Mixed Reality, which connects the physical with the virtual world.
Medica mondiale is a women's rights and aid organisation based in Cologne, Germany. It supports projects and advocates politically for girls and women affected by sexual violence in war zones worldwide.
Cecilia Strada is an Italian philanthropist and essayist. She is a former president of the NGO Emergency, which provides free medical treatment to the victims of war, poverty and land mines.
Ajna Jusić is a Bosnia and Herzegovina advocate for children, like herself, who were born after rape during war. She founded an organisation, Forgotten Children of War, and both she and the organisation have won awards.
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