Renee Montagne
Renee Montagne is co-host of NPR's Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio news program in the U.S. She has hosted the newsmagazine since 2004, broadcasting from NPR West in Culver City, California, with co-host Steve Inskeep in NPR's Washington, D.C. headquarters. Ms. Montagne has made repeated trips to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, reporting on the challenges and triumphs of women and girls there. Whether interviewing military generals or State Department officials, she has kept a focus on women's rights and the critical role of economic and civil society development efforts in Afghanistan. Her reporting has contributed significantly to a broader understanding among Americans of the complex landscape that is Afghanistan.

Sunita Viswanath
Sunita Viswanath founded Women for Afghan Women in 2001 to work towards a greater voice for Afghan women in the struggle for their human rights. Under Viswanath's leadership, Women for Afghan Women has established a network of five centers in Afghanistan to shelter women whose lives are threatened by family violence and to provide education and job training programs. The organization has been instrumental in caring for Bibi Aisha, the young Afghan woman featured on the cover of Time magazine whose Taliban husband and in-laws cut off her nose and ears as punishment for running away from their abuse. Visnawath is also Development Director of MADRE and for many years was the Director of Grants and Programs at The Sister Fund.

Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced "Ong San Soo Chee") was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 in recognition of her work in the nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma. She was held under house arrest for 15 years by the Burmese military junta after her political party won the 1990 general election in a landslide victory. The military junta refused to recognize the election results. Suu Kyi was released in November 2010 and will join us via video from her country. A tireless advocate for human rights, freedom and democracy in Burma, we honor her perseverance and dedication to these ideals. Her endless strength and endurance through seemingly insurmountable adversity, inspires us all.

Yolette Jeanty
Many of Haiti's most prominent feminist leaders were killed in last year's devastating earthquake, including Magalie Marcelin, co-founder of the feminist organization Kay Fanm ("The House of Women"). The mission of Kay Fanm continues under its co-founder, Yolette Andree Jeanty, and it has done extraordinary work to staunch the epidemic of rape and violence against women in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. In addition to Ms. Jeanty's involvement with Kay Fanm beginning in 1984, she has also served as Executive Director of the Platform of Haitian Organizations for Human Rights (POHDH) and as the Executive Directorate of the National Coordination for Advocacy Women's Rights (CONAP), a platform of women's organizations in Haiti in which Kay Fanm was a founding member.

Gloria Steinem
As founding editor of Ms., Gloria Steinem ensured that the magazine would not just cover U.S. feminism, but bring to U.S. feminists stories of women's courageous struggles for equality around the world. She continues to speak out against such global injustices as female genital cutting, sex trafficking, honor killings and U.S. restrictions on international family planning—thus keeping them high on the feminist agenda.

Dolores Huerta
A fighter for human rights since the early 1960s when she co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta has expanded her activism far beyond the California fields. In recent years, she has focused public attention on the brutal killings of women in Juarez, Mexico and helped ensure that law enforcement on both sides of the border work more aggressively to investigate the crimes.

Khaled Hosseini
Through his beloved novels The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the world learned that the Taliban's horrendous treatment of women and girls was not due to culture or custom; it was simply criminal. A U.N. goodwill envoy for refugees, Khaled Hosseini continues his efforts to invest in the education and other critical needs of Afghan women, children and refugees.

Christiane Amanpour
CNN's chief international correspondent who, at the risk of her own life, was among the first television correspondents to bring to the world's attention the plight of women under the brutal Taliban regime as it rose to power in Afghanistan.

Leymah Gbowee, Abigail Disney & Gini Reticker
Leymah Gbowee led an unprecedented mobilization of women from across Liberia in a series of massive demonstrations to end the bloody 14 year long civil war. Producer Abigail Disney, lifelong women's rights activist and philanthropist and Director Gini Reticker, focused the world's attention on the transformative impact of this Liberian women's peace movement by championing their story to worldwide audiences in her award-winning film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Dr. Neal Baer & Mariska Hargitay
For over eight seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU), Dr. Neal Baer (Executive Producer) and Mariska Hargitay (as Detective Olivia Benson) have brought television audiences a better understanding of violence against women, including international human trafficking and child soldiers in war.

Billie Heller
For her nearly three decades of work to win U.S. Senate ratification of the International Women's Rights Treaty (CEDAW) Billie Heller will receive a special award.

One Million Signatures Campaign
In special recognition of their groundbreaking work to demand an end to discriminatory laws in Iran against women, we honor the One Million Signatures Campaign. Iranian Campaign Activists, including Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, are being repeatedly arrested and harassed for speaking out for women's human rights.

Dr. Solomon Orero
Physician and advocate for women's health
A leading provider of women's health care in Kenya and East Africa including Darfur, Sudan, Dr. Orero has created a network of trained nurses, health officers and doctors to recognize and treat the effects of unsafe abortions, saving thousands of lives. He has worked throughout Africa to find solutions to reduce maternal mortality and has campaigned tirelessly against deadly U.S. international family planning policies such as the Global Gag Rule.

Maria Luisa Fuentes Sanchez
Executive Director of the Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (GIRE)
A passionate reproductive justice activist and one of Mexico's leading voices for safe abortion and contraception, Ms. Sanchez Fuentes led a four year campaign which culminated in the decriminalization of first trimester abortion in Mexico City in Spring 2007. Prior to passage of the new law, abortion was legal only in very limited circumstances, forcing many women to seek unsafe, back-alley abortions and sending more than 10,000 of them to hospitals each year with complications including hemorrhaging and infections.

Nafis Sadik
A physician specializing in women's health
Sadik serves as the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary General for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific . Sadik served as the Executive Director for the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA for many years. Her tenure was marked by many achievements, including chairing the landmark United Nations Conference on Population and Development in 1994, attended by representatives from more than 180 countries. This conference put women's health and gender equality at the center of the world's development and population agenda.

Dr. Sima Samar
Chairperson of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
In the face of death threats from warlords and fundamentalists, Samar works tirelessly for the basic human righs of Aghanistan's women and girls.

Dr. Rebecca Gomperts
Founder of Women on Waves
Gomperts and her crew have sailed their state-of-the-art clinic to Ireland, Poland and Portugal - offering safe abortions and inspiring legalization campaigns.

Laurie David
Environmental Leader
A devoted crusader for the environment, David's Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth has galvanized a grassroots movement in the fight against global warming.

Yanar Mohammed
Founder and President of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq
Mohammed courageously campaigns for Iraqi women's equal and vital role in society and government, even as their rights and safety are under attack.

Dr. Shirin Ebadi
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts for democracy and human rights, in which she especially focuses on the struggle for the rigths of women and children in her country on Iran.

Jody Williams
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work as the coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which resulted in a treaty signed by 122 countries.

Betty Williams
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, along with Mairead Corrigan, for her work for peace in Northern Ireland leading unprecedented marches in which Protestants and Catholics walked together for peace.

Rigoberta Menchu Tum
Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work for social justice, women's rights, and the rights and well-being of indigenous peoples in her native Guatemala and elsewhere.