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U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy
D-VT
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It is an honor and a great pleasure to be here with you tonight to present the Jonathan Mann Award for Health and Human Rights.
This year's recipient is someone who, while healing the neediest of the needy of her country, is also helping to heal a nation. She has summoned great courage and applied clear vision, while working under extraordinarily difficult and dangerous conditions, to bring basic health care to the citizens of Afghanistan, her homeland. She has done this through years of war that devastated her country, and in the face of the systematic violation of the fundamental rights of Afghan women.
The nominations received by the Global Health Council for this year's award were universally excellent. The decision was a difficult one, but after review by the Selection Committee -- of which I am proud to be a member -- one person stood out.
The work of all of these nominees speaks of the daily struggles and hardships faced by those who fight to remove obstacles to health care, which Jonathan Mann, the namesake of this award, considered a basic human right.
Jonathan Mann was a pioneer in the global fight against AIDS. He was also a voice of conscience -- a tireless advocate for people around the world who suffered not only from HIV and AIDS, but from the stigma that so often accompanies it.
Jonathan Mann fervently believed that the key to defeating AIDS is in treating every individual with the respect and dignity that human life demands.
It is a principle that each of us must reaffirm as we carry on the fight against this terrible disease, especially at a time when ideology often seems to take precedence over what is in the best interests of public health.
I want to commend you, Nils, for your extraordinarily thoughtful and powerful speech yesterday. Jonathan Mann would have been proud of you.
I am proud of you. I am grateful for the work that the Global Health Council, and each of you, are doing to stand up for basic principles of health care.
Tonight we are honoring a woman who has devoted her professional life to forcing universal recognition and acceptance of the value of women and girls in Afghanistan.
Dr. Sima Samar founded and directs the Shuhada Organization, the oldest Afghan and the largest woman-led non-governmental organization in the region. Currently Chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, she is also internationally known as Afghanistan's first Minister of Women's Affairs.
Since 1989, Shuhada has implemented unprecedented programs in health, education, relief and reconstruction to improve the lives of Afghan women and girls.
Often working undercover in defiance of the brutally repressive Taliban, Dr. Samar opened hospitals and clinics, a housing community for poor widows and their families, and shelters and schools that serve the women and children of Afghanistan today.
Today, more than 36,700 girls and boys study in Shuhada schools. These clinics and hospitals provide services to hundreds of patients each day.
Now with a staff of more than 1,000, Shuhada employs more workers than almost any other local or international organization in Afghanistan.
Dr. Samar has set an example for her country, and for all of us.
Please welcome a healer in every sense of that marvelous word, Dr. Sima Samar.
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