Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recognized female leaders’ role in building global peace at the annual Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards at Georgetown University on Oct. 1.
“When women have a seat at the table, they can be very helpful advocates for de-escalating conflict and finding solutions,” Clinton said at the event. “They have laid a path out for us to follow, to show that public life is exactly where they and you belong.”
The event, hosted by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS), gave awards to three former heads of state or government: former Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, former Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid and former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The ceremony also celebrated the work of Women of the Sun, a West Bank-based nonprofit that aims to empower women in the Palestinian community, and Women Wage Peace, an Israel-based grassroots organization that advocates for the nonviolent end of the Israel-Hamas war.
Clinton, an honorary founding chair of the GIWPS, presented the awards alongside GIWPS Executive Director Melanne Verveer, the former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues.
Clinton said pursuing the goal of peace remains a pressing endeavor today.
“I keep waiting for the year when that mission feels less urgent, but that is not this year,” Clinton said. “There are so many problems in the world, so much conflict, and we have to keep doing all that we can in order to move forward because we can’t allow the forces of war and darkness and conflict to discourage us and to overwhelm our will — because we have made progress.”
Clinton said each honoree was selected for their efforts to protect democracy and combat the threat of tyranny.
“There is a common thread that goes through what each of them has said: the defense of human rights, the defense of democracy, bringing people together, trying to cross divides, standing up against autocracy and extremism wherever it might be,” Clinton said.
Grybauskaitė, known as the Baltic “Iron Lady,” was honored for her commitment to fighting against Russian aggression and leading Lithuanian involvement in the European Union (EU).
Grybauskaitė said leaders must understand that democracy underpins a peaceful global order.
“A leader needs to understand that democratic values and democracy is a guarantor of peace and freedoms for everybody, for people, for families, for human rights, for women,” Grybauskaitė said at the event. “We need to fight every day, showing example, showing our commitment and proving every day that it is a guarantor of our freedoms.”
Kaljulaid was commended for her efforts to advance Estonia’s technological capabilities, her continued fight for gender equality and her work to oppose Russian aggression.
Kaljulaid said it is important to keep the protection of human rights as a top priority when shifting to a more technological society.
“We have always to remember that the rules which apply in the analog world, the human rights respect of each other, etcetera — this always also applies in similar ways in the digital world and also in the future, the new AI-enhanced world,” Kaljulaid said at the event. “It is very important that as we move from one level to the other of technological development, we keep our basic value structure, value frame, in place.”
Gillard was honored for fighting for educational freedom and spreading awareness about ongoing misogyny.
She said certain young men view women in leadership roles as a threat and aim to restrict women’s workplace mobility.
“I think we need to recognize now, we can see in the data of the youngest generation, there is a backlash,” Gillard said at the event. “They think that the project of gender equality has discriminated against them.”
Clinton said future generations of women will be able to learn from the challenges these female leaders faced.
“This generation of young women, particularly, has the benefit of seeing a lot that has gone on and understanding how challenging the work is, whether it’s in politics and government or peacebuilding,” Clinton said.
During the event, Reem Hajajreh, the founder and director of Women of the Sun, and Angela Scharf, foreign relations coordinator of Women Wage Peace, spoke on behalf of their organizations, which have worked together since 2022 to coordinate marches and rallies and create a joint mission statement, Mothers’ Call, that demands an end to bloodshed in the Middle East.
Scharf said that creating Mothers’ Call allowed Women of the Sun and Women Wage Peace to create a common language through shared dialogue.
“We wanted to write down a common view, a statement of our common vision, of our shared mission, of our desires, of our dreams, of our common language,” Scharf said at the event. “We built a common language without shaming and blaming — to say that it was easy, it wasn’t easy. Every single word had to be negotiated because every word had a different meaning in our different societies.”
Hajajreh said Women of the Sun aims to facilitate women’s political empowerment, drawing on the idea of motherhood as a uniting factor.
“It was very important for women to have that awareness that can help them protect children from being pulled into political conflicts,” Hajajreh said at the event. “These are women that refuse to be victims, who say no stop is enough. We want to protect our children from the cycle of bloodshed and live in equality and freedom.”
Clinton said each of the honorees has demonstrated determination as leaders, which continues to show their support for the spread of global peace.
“Hope is a muscle. Resilience is learned behavior,” Clinton said. “You have to be prepared to keep going no matter what stands in the way to go through that wall.”
