Statement of the jury: The Anne Klein Women’s Award 2025

Honor

The 2025 Anne Klein Women’s Award goes to the Belarusian feminists and women’s rights activists Darya Afanasieva, Irina Alkhovka and Julia Mickiewicz. 

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honours Darya Afanasieva, Irina Alkhovka and Julia Mickiewicz from Belarus

The 2025 Anne Klein Women’s Award goes to the Belarusian feminists and women’s rights activists Darya Afanasieva, Irina Alkhovka and Julia Mickiewicz. All three, the women’s and human rights activist Irina Alkhovka, the feminist blogger Darya Afanasieva and the feminist activist and politician Julia Mickiewicz, are victims of officially sanctioned persecution and repression, which has forced them into exile in Europe from where they are continuing their gender democratic activism.

Statement of the jury

For 25 years, Julia Mickiewicz, who holds a degree in journalism, has been a political, feminist and civil-society activist. After Lukashenko rigged the 2020 elections she founded FemGroup with the aim of adding a feminist voice to the co-ordination committee that brought together different strands of the Belarusian opposition. Her aim was to boost and guarantee women’s participation at all levels and, together with her colleagues, – and despite considerable opposition – she managed to push through a women’s quota for the first co-ordination committee elections that took place in 2024. Today, FemGroup is an innovative NGO, with Julia also an active member of the Council of Europe’s contact group for Belarus, a substitute for a Belarusian state delegation to the Council, where Julia is responsible for gender equality and mainstreaming.

In 1996, Irina Alkhovka was one of the first graduates of the then recently created Gender Studies course at Minsk University’s Faculty of Sociology. That same year she was elected chairwoman of the Belarusian branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and she started to campaign against the trafficking in Belarusian women to Western Europe. In co-operation with La Strada, a European network against human trafficking, she created the NGO La Strada Belarus in 2002. As its chair, Irina campaigned for comprehensive prevention measures and protective mechanisms for those affected by human trafficking – and that inside autocratic Belarus. In addition, she set up round tables with officials and women’s rights advocates in order to fight human trafficking in Belarus and bolster victim’s rights. Then, in 2010, Irina founded the Belarusian NGO Gender Perspectives in order to promote gender democracy in Belarus and to develop programmes in support of victims of gender-specific violence. Today, both NGOs are banned in Belarus.

Darya Afanasieva is one of only a few feminist bloggers with more than 10,000 followers in Belarus – a very substantial number for that country. Using the name Dafne, she addresses topics such as sexism and feminist literature, introducing the Belarusian public to feminist thought. Following the protests against election rigging and the growing repression against democratic forces, Darya was sentenced to two-and-a-half years of prison camp with forced labour, allegedly for ‘offences against public order’. She was sent to the notorious Women’s Penal Colony No.4 in Gomel, where civil rights activist Maryia Kalesnikava is also being held in solitary confinement. In March 2024, Darya was released and immediately afterwards managed to escape to Poland. She continues to blog on feminist issues, currently mainly on the situation of women imprisoned in Belarus.

Feminist activism, as personified by Julia, Irina and Darya, and their determination and resilience in the face of brutal persecution and violence by the government are exemplary for what women experience in their fight against autocratic regimes.

As feminists, activists and bloggers, Darya, Irina and Julia are addressing gender-specific issues such as discrimination and violence against women* – and that despite the fact that this will make them targets for repression which reaches well beyond the borders of their home country. They are all at risk, as the Belarusian regime will also suppress and threaten dissidents in exile, as well as those already living in the diaspora.

With their different types of political activism, Julia, Irina and Darya stand for and sum up several generations of women’s political commitment. They are making use of digital activism and platforms; they are setting up safe spaces for women affected by violence; and they are campaigning for women’s political participation and their right to be heard. They are thus following in the footsteps of our award’s namesake, Anne Klein, while, at the same time, developing new forms.

Darya, Irina and Julia exemplify the spirit of the civic activism surrounding the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus. In the summer of 2020, after Lukashenko had rigged the elections, it was women who lead the rallies for freedom and democracy. Almost a million people participated in Belarus, a country with a population of nine million. Hundreds of people are still in prison for political reasons, often serving hefty sentences under cruel conditions. Darya, Irinia and Julia were not among those leading the protest rallies and were still forced to go into exile, in order to escape the repression and the campaign of violence that followed the protest. Darya Afanasieva only succeeded in doing so after more than two years in prison.

In January 2025, the Belarusian regime will again orchestrate a presidential election. No opposition candidates will be allowed to run and independent media or civil society groups no longer exist. Whether Lukashenko will be able to use this “election” to make himself appear more legitimate will, among other things, depend on the reaction of the German and European governments and the public. The Anne Klein Women’s Award 2025 is meant to show our solidarity with the persecuted freedom fighters from Belarus, and honour the three awardees’ continuing activism for a free and gender equitable Belarus within a democratic Europe.



Contact

Ulrike Cichon
E-Mail cichon@boell.de
Phone +30-285 34-112