An award confronting injustice three women share the 2011 Nobel peace prize.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee divided the Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 in three equal parts between three women: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee, both from the West African state of Liberia, and Tawakkul Karman from Yemen. The prize was awarded for their "non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

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It was only the second time that three individuals have won the prize in a given year, and the Nobel laureates will split their $1.5 million prize. Also, only 40 of the total 776 Peace Prize winners have been women in the past. Who are these three women?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: The first female head of state in Africa

The most famous, and by far the oldest, of the female Nobel trio, is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Sirleaf is the first and only democratically elected female head of state in Africa; she was elected president of Liberia in 2005. Before, she worked in the field of finance, working for the World Bank in Washington D.C., then moved to Nairobi for a job at Citibank. She got started in politics in 1985, when she moved home to first run for vice president, then for president.

That two of the three winners are from Liberia has good reasons. The African country was ripped apart by civil war and political instability for almost thirty years, and both Sirleaf and Gbowee played a role in ending the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. In her first year in office, Sirleaf created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that investigated human rights violations committed during the civil war and which barred 49 people from holding public offices. The Harvard-trained economist also drastically reduced Liberia's debt.

According to the Nobel committee, Sirleaf has "contributed to securing peace in Liberia, to promoting economic and social development, and to strengthening the position of women." The 72-year-old leader of the West African nation was re-elected as president of Liberia in November 2011.

Leymah Gbowee: A symbol of hope in her country

Leymah Gbowee, also from Liberia, is a 39-year old peace activist and women's rights advocate, who had organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring the long war in Liberia to an end and to ensure women's participation in elections.

Her Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace started as a grassroots movement. It was devoted to nonviolent protest and prayer and convinced the then President Charles Taylor to meet with them and make him promise to attend peace talks. Taylor eventually resigned and fled to Nigeria for safety, making room for Ellen Sirleaf's election.

"In the past we were silent, but after being killed, raped, dehumanized, and infected with diseases, and watching our children and families destroyed, war has taught us that the future lies in saying NO to violence and YES to peace! We will not relent until peace prevails," the women said to President Charles Taylor.

When receiving the news about the Peace Nobel Prize Gbowee said that she would continue her work, with or without the award. "My work has nothing to do with awards ... I'll still do what I do, because I am a symbol of hope in my community, on the continent."

Tawakkul Karman: The youngest winner ever

Tawakkul Karman is a dedicated journalist, human rights activist and politician in the Arab country of Yemen, a poor, deeply divided country that has been in turmoil since January 2011 with mass demonstrations against President All Abdullah Saleh. She is the first Arab woman and the second Muslim woman to ever win a Nobel Prize. At 32, she is also the youngest winner of the prestigious prize.

When the Nobel announcement was made on a Friday in October 2011, the young woman was found in a protest tent in Change Square in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. Throughout 2011, simultaneously with the Egyptian Revolution and other mass protests in the Arab world, Karman had organized large-scale popular movements and student rallies against the government. She was arrested in January 2011, but when released, she immediately went back to protesting. Her arrest helped to kick off protests by hundreds of thousands demanding the immediate resignation of dictatorial President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the creation of a democratic government. When Saleh denounced women for joining men in demonstrations and played on cultural sensitivities, thousands of women took to the streets, denouncing Saleh's regime and calling for him to go. At the end of November, only weeks after Karman received the Peace Nobel Prize, President Saleh indeed finally bowed to pressure and agreed to step down as president after more than three decades. Even many years before the revolutions started, Karman had already stood up against one of the most authoritarian and autocratic regimes in the world, with Saleh the only president that she had ever known, as he took power half a year before she was born. As chair and co-founder of Women Journalists Without Chains, she organized protests and demonstrations, calling on the government to allow people to own online newspapers. "We knew and know that freedom of speech is the door to democracy and justice," she said.

"This prize is not for Tawakkul," she explained from her tent as she received congratulations from all sides.

"It is for the whole Yemeni people, for the cause of standing up to Saleh and his gangs. Every tyrant and dictator is upset by this prize because it confronts injustice." q

The Nobel Prizes

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award.

Nobel Prize Awarded to Women

The Nobel Prize and Prize in Economic Sciences have been awarded to women 44 times between 1901 and 2011. Only one woman, Marie Curie, has been honoured twice, with the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This means that 43 women in total have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2011.