This press release is published on 18 February 2025 by the Niwano Peace Foundation. To view and download the full version, visit here.

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The 42nd Niwano Peace Prize shall be awarded to Musawah in recognition of its immense efforts to strengthen citizenship and peaceful coexistence in diverse societies, and to create contexts and platforms for interfaith dialogue and spiritual solidarity. It is addressing the gender biased socio-economic, legal and political discrimination in human history. Its goal is to uncover the voices of women that have long been silenced in cultural and religious societies. Its international network includes hundreds of advocates from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Global North in over 40 countries, who are campaigning for positive changes in attitudes, practices, laws, and policies to support the human rights of women and girls in Muslim countries. The Niwano Peace Foundation honors Musawah’s dedication to empowering women’s leadership in social, legal, and spiritual activism, advancing civic engagement, human rights, and peace.

The presentation ceremony will take place in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, May 14, 2025. In addition to an award certificate, Musawah will receive a medal and twenty million yen.

To avoid undue emphasis on any particular religion or region, every year the Peace Foundation solicits nominations from people of recognized intellectual and religious stature around the world. In the nomination process, some hundreds of designated nominators and organizations throughout the world from many religions and academics across the globe are asked to propose candidates. Nominees are rigorously screened by the Niwano Peace Prize Committee, which presently consists of nine religious leaders from diverse geographical areas, all of whom are involved in movements for peace and inter-religious cooperation.

Here are some impressions of Musawah from members of the committee responsible for selecting this year’s recipient:

• The Musawah movement, founded in 2009, is one of the most important contributors in the development of the referred dialogue and must be considered for the award. The dialogue between the great values of democracy and the historical religious-cultural traditions is a great challenge in our present and could be decisive in the building of the coming world.

• The effectiveness of Musawah’s method of action: the idea that in order to achieve global peace one must start with peace in the family is absolutely shareable. … The movement’s efforts to demonstrate that “equality and justice in the Muslim family are necessary and possible” on the basis of Quranic doctrine is to be admired; Musawah carries out its action in a very rational and wise way by accompanying the study of the issue with practice and having as its goal a normative framework without which there is no possibility of change in society; very important is the commitment at the international level: the support of a global women movement and of International Organizations is indispensable for the achievement of the goal Musawah has set. … [T]he positive approach -showing the justice and beauty of Islamic marriage … is a path that has serious chances of achieving positive results.

• Musawah have taken a very bold step in challenging the patriarchal nature of their religion… . Though they are aware of the possible outcomes of such steps, as it happens to women in various
  religions, they have decided to come out of the cocoon and express their views regarding to equality. … They believe that the unfairness and harm that comes from denigration of women within
  family relationships, to women, children, and the family more broadly, are linked in large measure
  to cultural interpretations of religious teachings. Musawah’s orientation is spiritual in a highly
  practical sense, focusing on core religious values and teachings, then translating that understanding into analysis and activism to bring about changes in laws and in their practical implementation. Musawah recognizes that without redressing legal practices that perpetuate inequality (in, for example divorce and custody, response to violence) harmful practices and structural social violence cannot change.
  This initiative of Musawah is a foundation and a lesson to be learnt by many women in other religions and also changing the lenses in the interpretation of scriptures and religious history.

• Musawah’s faith-based human rights approach to advocacy for equality uses strategies such as reinterpreting religious texts, addressing legal practices as well as building knowledge and capacity through training and education to empower women, and allies across society who are committed to furthering the cause of gender equality, justice, and fairness. They are driven by a strong sense of values and Islamic principles, and work with the notion that addressing the structural and contextual injustices in the lived realities of people using faith concepts is not only a way of bearing witness to the justice that faith advocates for, but also necessary for a healthy and wholesome spiritual, religious and practical life.

The Niwano Peace Prize
The Niwano Peace Foundation established the Niwano Peace Prize to honor and encourage individuals
and organizations that have contributed significantly to inter-religious cooperation, thereby furthering
the cause of world peace, and to make their achievements known as widely as possible. The Foundation
hopes in this way both to enhance inter-religious understanding and cooperation and to encourage the
emergence of still more persons devoted to working for world peace.
The Prize is named in honor of the founder of this foundation, Nikkyo Niwano, also the first president
of the lay Buddhist organization Rissho Kosei-kai. For Niwano, peace was not merely an absence of
conflict among nations, but a dynamic harmony in the inner lives of people as well as in our communities,
nations, and the world. Seeing peace as the goal of Buddhism, Niwano devoted much of the latter half
of his life to promoting world peace, especially through inter-religious discussion and cooperation.

The Niwano Peace Foundation
The Niwano Peace Foundation was chartered in 1978 with the aim of contributing to the realization of
world peace and enhancing a culture of peace. The foundation promotes research and other activities
based on the spirit of religious principles and serves the cause of peace in such fields as education,
science, religion, and philosophy. The Foundation’s assets, totaling approximately 4.7 billion yen,
enable the Niwano Peace Prize as well as other activities such as grants, research projects, lectures,
symposia, and international exchanges. The Niwano Peace Foundation is a government-recognized
charitable organization.