Hafsat Abiola

Biography

Human rights activist Hafsat Abiola has, in her young life, changed the very heart of Nigerian society. Born in Nigeria to an activist, politician father who was later jailed and a democratic activist mother who was assassinated, Abiola was not set on easy path from her very first day in 1974. Despite these extreme circumstances and difficulties of her youth, Abiola attended Philips Academy in Andover, graduated from Harvard College, and immediately turned her attention to her native Nigeria where, in 1996, she founded the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), an non-governmental organization dedicated to forming a civil democracy in Nigeria. A decade later, Abiola brought the feminist performance The Vagina Monologues and the concept of VDay (to end violence against women) to Nigeria, determined to change the culture of Nigeria to recognize women and children as essential components of a functional, civil society. At only 35 years, Abiola continues to struggle against oppression, for women and children's initiatives, in favor of democracy, and for basic human and civil rights for people in Nigeria, and women worldwide.

Quotations

"I really feel we can do better than this." (On the state of disarray and treatment of women in Nigeria.)

References