BBC reporter Vicky Ntetema exposed the murder and mutilation of albino people in Tanzania at the command of witch doctors. For this, her life is now in danger.
Claudia Julieta Duque was kidnapped for investigating the murder of journalist Jaime Garzon in Colombia. The Colombian secret police threaten death, rape, and torture against her and her 13-yr-old daughter, so she lives in exile.
Tsering Woeser was taken from Tibet and placed under house arrest in Beijing for writing a book and blog about China's persecution of Tibetans resisting Chinese rule. She continues to put human rights violations on her blog, and 13 of her friends and informers have been jailed.
Alma Guillermoprieto reports on drug wars, civil wars, politics, and culture in Latin America. In 1981 she and another reporter risked their lives to report on the massacre of 1,000 villagers in El Mozote, El Salvador, by elite US-trained forces. The Reagan administration claimed her reports were not true and called her a leftist, but ten years later the mass graves were uncovered and officials were forced to admit to the slaughter. She received the IWMF Lifetime Achievement Award.
These four women were honored at banquets in New York on Oct. 19 and in Los Angeles on Oct. 21 at the Beverly Hotel. The acceptance speeches of Duque, Ntetema, and Guillermoprieto were very moving. Woeser, however, was not allowed to leave China to accept her award.
See more on these women at http://www.iwmf.org/archive/articletype/articleview/articleid/1272/claudia-julieta-duque-has-the-courage-to-speak.aspx
