Citizenship award 2008: Jeanne Devos and Simone Susskind

2008: Jeanne Devos, human rights activist and founder of the National Domestic Workers Movement (MDWM) and Simone Susskind, chairwoman of Actions dans la Méditérranée.

Jeanne Devos

Sister Jeanne Devos receives the award for her work in Mumbai and India, specifically for founding and animating the National Domestic Workers' Movement. With the NDWM, Jeanne Devos fights for fair wages and humane working conditions for domestic workers. A group composed mainly of children and women.

Today, the NDWM is active in 22 Indian states and has two million members representing the fate of an estimated 90 million domestic workers in India. In several states, the movement already achieved significant legislative changes, such as the recognition of domestic work as labour and the introduction of a minimum wage law for domestic labour. Since 2006, a law bans the labour of children under 14 in the hospitality and domestic work sectors. Jeanne Devos receives national and international recognition for her work.

Simone Susskind 

She receives the award for her commitment to peace in the Middle East, for the contribution she has made and is making to enabling dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis. From the beginning, she stressed the extremely important role of women in conflict resolution. 

Simone Susskind is undeniably one of those female pioneers who initiated the equal participation of women in conflict resolution. Thanks to her contacts with her Palestinian friends, she gets to know the reality of women's lives in the Islamic world. With Actions dans la Méditérranée, she builds bridges between women on both shores of the Mediterranean, convinced that respect for women's fundamental rights is an indispensable condition for democracy and development.

(download pdf Laureates 2008 in french or dutch)