Ruth
Manorama is one of the leading advocates for the Dalit women in India, who are
among the nation's poorest of the 'untouchables.' She has been involved in working
with the poor all of her adult life, and in the early 1990s began to bring the
plight of the Dalit women to the international community's attention. She helped
organize a public hearing on Violence Against Dalit Women in Bangalore in 1993,
which led to the creation of the National Federation of Dalit Women. She helped
coordinate the South India chapter of the preparations for the Fourth UN World
Conference on Women that took place in Beijing in 1995, and then became president
of the National Alliance of Women, which works to monitor the Indian government's
performance on its commitments to protect the rights of women. She has served
on numerous other international bodies such as the Asian Women's Human Rights
Council, and on many national bodies like the State Commission for Women, the
National Task Force on Women's Empowerment, and the National Centre for Labor.
She has helped to mobilize mass demonstrations of hundreds of thousands in support
of the rights of the poor and has traveled throughout India lobbying and advocating
on their behalf and building alliances between social movements. In
2005, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of the '1000 women for
the Nobel Peace Prize' campaign. In 2006 she received the Right Livelihood Award,
often called the Alternative Nobel Prize,
"…for her commitment over decades to achieving equality for Dalit women, building
effective and committed women’s organisations and working for their rights at
national and international levels."
