Fatimata M'Baye

Fatimata M'Baye, born in 1957 in Mauritania, is a Mauritanian lawyer regarded as her country's first female lawyer, having studied law and economics at the University of Nouakchott from 1981 to 1985. She has built her career on human rights advocacy, particularly campaigning against slavery and racial discrimination in Mauritania, work for which she was imprisoned for six months in 1987 and again for thirteen months in 1998, the latter for membership in an unapproved organization, before being pardoned under international pressure. In 1991 she co-founded the Mauritanian Human Rights Association, becoming its president in 2006, and in 2013 she joined a United Nations commission of inquiry into the conflict in the Central African Republic, whose 2015 final report found all warring parties responsible for crimes against humanity. Her honors include the 1999 Nuremberg International Human Rights Award and the United States State Department's 2016 International Women of Courage Award.