Source: TrustLaw
Today the Nobel Committee announced that it is awarding its Peace Prize, the world’s top honor for individuals advancing peace, justice, human rights and humanitarian efforts, to three women: Leymah Gbowee, Tawakkul Karman, and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

While the fact that the prize is being awarded to three women is important, it is not the most important symbol of what today’s announcement represents. Sure, the number of women who have been honored in the prize’s history (twelve until today) pales in comparison to the number of men (eighty-five), and that disparity should be addressed. But focusing exclusively on the numbers game as we congratulate Gbowee, Karman and Sirleaf misses the point entirely: these women are not honored today because they are women. They are honored for what their work represents in promoting a more peaceful, just world. These are three leaders in a global movement of women working for peace and justice every day,  from the streets of the Arab Spring, to the heat of the battlefield, to the highest levels of political leadership.

Worldwide, women have demonstrated time and again their strength as agents of peace and justice. From Egypt to Afghanistan, from Sudan to DR Congo, and from Cuba to Ireland, women have weathered war, repressive regimes and insecurity to mediate between armed groups, provide for families in the midst of chaos, and organize against violence and human rights abuses. Often, they do so only to be threatened, attacked and even killed for their efforts.

Women have organized in the streets of Havana to demand accountability for political prisoners, and they were on the frontlines of Tahrir Square. They have brought warlords to the peace table in Ireland and Nepal, and they have been targeted for activism and political leadership in Afghanistan and Bahrain. Today’s recipients of the Peace Prize are unquestionably worthy of this high honor on their own merits; they are also symbolic of the less-recognized efforts of their sisters around the globe.

With the Committee’s recognition of Gbowee, Karman and Sirleaf, it is doing more than honoring women. It is making invisible agents of world peace—who are overwhelmingly female—visible and celebrated.  Invisible, when women have to this day served as only 6% of negotiators to formalized peace talks, despite their undisputed value to peace across the community, national and international levels. Women are invisible, when only 1 in 13 participants in peace negotiations since 1992 has been a woman. Women are invisible, when no woman has ever been appointed as chief mediator to a UN-sponsored peace talk. Women are invisible, when their absence at the peace table leads to impunity for crimes committed against them as a price of negotiated peace. Yet the ramifications of this trend are not invisible. Half of peace agreements fail within less than 10 years, spelling more costs to human lives and global resources when conflict reignites. When only men with guns are allowed to speak for peace, this is hardly a surprise.

The women who are honored today are symbols of what is possible when women move from the sidelines of global peace and security processes to the forefront. Women like Karman and Gbowee are unstoppable forces courageously pushing for peace at the frontlines of their country’s conflicts, at great personal risk. Both women leveraged their networks—from Gbowee’s religious and market women communities at the grassroots, to Karman’s expert utilization of technology and social networking tools online—to catalyze a groundswell of support for peaceful revolution and more representative, real justice. They are brilliant strategists who were able to identify elements of political leverage and keep public pressure on leaders to account to the will of the people. And some women, though still far too few, are the national-level political leaders, like Sirleaf, who emerge from truly democratic uprisings like we have seen in Liberia and Yemen. Once women hold office, they are often the first to cross political boundaries, to invest in community-level development, and to combat corruption, spelling better government, services and prospects for development for all.

Today's announcement by the Nobel Committee is not only justified, it is also right on time. Later this month we will celebrate the anniversary of a groundbreaking piece of international law that first linked women with global security concerns: UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). 1325 recognizes women’s unique vulnerabilities in war, but equally calls for their full participation in the structuring of peace and in the prevention of conflict. This time last year, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood before the United Nations Security Council—the highest security body in the world—and announced that the United States would be drafting a National Action Plan to incorporate the elements of UNSCR 1325 into its national policies and programs. We eagerly anticipate the leadership of the U.S. on this issue, much as we applaud the Committee's recognition of the enormous contributions women make to building a more peaceful and prosperous world—for all.

Today we are at a turning point in the way we think about peace, the way we think about women, and the way we organize our institutions and societies in relation to them. There is nothing new about women fighting for peace; they have been doing so throughout history. What is new, is that three of these women are being recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize, and are thus moving us all a step farther toward a future where their anonymous sisters will no longer have to shout from the sidelines.