Irene
Fernandez is a Malaysian teacher who became a human rights activist after seeing
the suffering, malnutrition and depression in the poor inner-city students she
taught. The mother of three children of her own, she became involved in many causes
for social change in her country, including documenting the harmful impact of
pesticides on women plantation workers, organizing workers and farmers to stand
up to multinational corporations, and organizing women workers to fight against
domestic violence and gender bias. In 1991 she co-founded the non-governmental
organization, Tenaganita, to help protect the rights of migrant workers and other
oppressed people in Malaysia after witnessing the intense suffering, sexual abuse
and torture undocumented migrant workers faced in her country. In 1995 she published
a report on the disgraceful living conditions migrant workers endure and was arrested
and charged with 'maliciously publishing false news.' Seven years of trials followed
and Irene Fernandez had to appear in court 300 times, but the support she found
from international human rights organizations gave her the courage to continue
on with her human rights work. In 2003, after seven years of trials, Irene Fernandez
was found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison. In 2005 she received the Right
Livelihood Award (often called the Alternative Nobel Prize) for "her outstanding
and courageous work to stop violence against women and abuses of migrant and poor
workers." That year she was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as part of
the 1000 Women for Peace project.
