Kadra Yusuf awarded LO’s Equality Award

Oslo.Kadra Yusuf .Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen / Scanpix

Norwegian-Somali Kadra Yusuf awarded LO’s Gender Equality Award

Kadra Yusuf (36) was awarded the Federation of Trade Unions’ (LO) gender equality award on Tuesday. The prize goes to a woman who has led the way and has strong integrity, said the leader of the ceremony

 

 

– She has led the way and dares to be brave. She has a seldom strong integrity and refuses to be put in one category, said LO secretary and leader of the award ceremony, Are Tomasgard.

– Shit, how cool is that, said Kadra Yusuf from the stage.

Some profanity must be okay here in the People’s hall, where there are room for so much, said the Norwegian-Somali Laureate, according to Fri Fagbevegelse  (Free Union).

Female circumcision

Kadra Yusuf first became known in Norwegian public through a documentary on TV 2 in 2000, where she used a hidden camera and microphone to reveal that imams in Norway encourage women to circumcise. Since then she has been active in the social debate and is today a columnist in Dagsavisen.

Yusuf says she will share the price with the country’s shelters for the abused and those who work there, including girls who themselves have taken up the fight and now work at the in shelters.

Furthermore she will share with all girls who break gender roles and who oppose what she calls the expectation prison, And last, but not least, with children growing up in poor families, living in municipal housing.

Former winners

LO’s Gender Equality Award has been distributed every fourth year since 1997. The first prize was awarded to Gro Harlem Brundtland. Later it went to Anne-Cath Vestly, Rosemarie Köhn and the Crisis Secretariat represented by Tove Smådal. In 2013, the prize was awarded to Inger Vagle and Ellen Møller for their work on the “Girls in Car and Electro” project.

 

© NTB Scanpix / Norway Today