Front Line Defenders announced the recipients of their 2022 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, honouring the prominent Sudanese women’s rights activist Amira Osman Hamid.

Hamid is a trained engineer and Chairperson of ‘’No to Women’s Oppression’’, an initiative established in 2009 to campaign against Sudan’s Public Order Laws which dictated what was proper for women to wear and how they could act in public life while encouraging citizens to report alleged improper behaviour. 

In 2002, Hamid was charged for wearing trousers and in 2013, she was detained and threatened with flogging for refusing to wear a headscarf. Under the public decency laws, a woman charged with ‘indecent or immoral dress’ was at risk of being sentenced with up to 40 lashes.

Earlier this year, Hamid was taken from her house in Khartoum to an unknown location by armed security officers before being released on bail a week later.

“Nevertheless, Amira never deterred from her mission and actively participated in peaceful demonstrations,” Front Line Defenders said in the statement announcing the winners.

The Annual Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk was established in 2005 to honour the outstanding contributions of human rights defenders to the promotion and protection of the human rights of others, often at great personal risk to themselves. 

Amongst the winners was The Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, recognised for its work on improving poor wages and the working conditions of rural teachers.

The organisation announced three other human rights defenders from Afghanistan, Belarus and Mexico as winners.