| Haja Zainab Hawa Bangura | |
|---|---|
| Haja Zainab Bangura in 2010 | |
| Sierra Leone Minister of Health and Sanitation | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office December 3, 2010 |
|
| President | Ernest Bai Koroma |
| Deputy | Mohamed Daudis Koroma |
| Preceded by | Soccoh Kabia |
| Sierra Leone Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
| In office 14 October 2007 – December 3, 2010 |
|
| Preceded by | Momodu Koroma |
| Succeeded by | Joseph Bandabla Dauda |
| Personal details | |
| Born | December 18, 1959 Yonibana, Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone |
| Nationality | Sierra Leonean |
| Political party | All People's Congress (APC) |
| Spouse(s) | Alhaji Shekie Bangura |
| Residence | Freetown, Sierra Leone |
| Alma mater | Fourah Bay College |
| Religion | Islam |
Haja Zainab Hawa Bangura (born December 18, 1959 in Yonibana, Tonkolili District) is a Sierra Leonean politician and social activist. She is currently Sierra Leone minister of Health and sanitation. In 2007 Bangura became Sierra Leone's foreign minister in the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People's Congress (APC) Party.[1] She is the second woman to serve as Sierra Leone's foreign minister, following Shirley Gbujama who held that position from 1996 to 1997. Bangura has been tiped by many political insiders to be Sierra Leone's first female president. As a devoted muslim, Zainab Hawa Bangura took time off politics in 2009 and heads to the Holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia and participated in the 2009 Hajj pilgrimage ceremony. [1]
Contents |
Mrs. Bangura was born Zainab Hawa Sesay in the small rural town of Yonibana, Tonkolili District in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone. She hails from the Temne ethnic group. She was born into a rural Temne family of limited means. She obtained a scholarship to study at Mathora Girls Secondary School in the town of Mathora, Tonkolili District and later at the Annie Walsh Girls Secondary School in the capital city of Freetown. After graduating from Sierra Leone's Fourah Bay College, she studied in the United Kingdom for advanced diplomas in insurance. While in her early 30s, she became vice-president of one of her country's largest insurance companies. She speaks three languages: Temne, Krio, and English.
Bangura began her career as a social activist during the difficult period when Sierra Leone was ruled by the N.P.R.C. military government, starting with consciousness-raising efforts among urban market women. In 1994 she founded Women Organized for a Morally Enlightened Nation (W.O.M.E.N.), the first non-partisan women's rights group in the country. The following year she co-founded the Campaign for Good Governance (CGG). Using CGG as her platform, she campaigned for the holding of the national elections that finally drove the NPRC junta from power in 1996 and restored democratic government. These were Sierra Leone's first democratic elections in 25 years.
During Sierra Leone's civil war (1991–2002) Bangura spoke out forcefully against the atrocities committed against the civilian population by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and was targeted for assassination several times by that group. She also spoke against the corruption in the civilian government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the atrocities committed against civilians by government soldiers. In 2002 she ran against Kabbah for the presidency of Sierra Leone, departing for the first time from her accustomed role as a non-partisan civil society activist. She won less than one percent of the vote, and her Movement for Progress (MOP) party failed to gain any seats in Sierra Leone's parliament. Mrs. Bangura claimed that her party's low vote count resulted from corruption in the voting system.
After the 2002 elections Bangura founded the National Accountability Group (NAG) whose mission was to fight against official corruption and to promote transparency and accountability in government. In 2006 she left Sierra Leone for neighboring Liberia where she was appointed Director of the Civil Affairs Office in the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and given responsibility for the reconstruction of 16 Liberian ministries and 30 government agencies following that country's devastating civil war.
Bangura returned to Sierra Leone in 2007 after Ernest Bai Koroma won the presidency in a hard-fought national election and was named foreign minister shortly thereafter. Many Sierra Leoneans believed that the new president elevated this well known critic of government to such a high position in order to demonstrate his good faith in promising reform.
Bangura has won several international awards for her promotion of democracy and human rights in Africa, including: the African International Award of Merit for Leadership (Nigeria, 1999); the Human Rights Award given by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (New York, 2000); the Bayard Rustin Humanitarian Award given by the A. Philip Randolph Institute (Washington, DC, 2002); and the Democracy Award given by the National Endowment for Democracy (Washington, DC, 2006).
| Preceded by Momodu Koroma |
Foreign Minister of Sierra Leone 2007-present |
Succeeded by incumbent |