Fatimata M’baye

In 1988, Fatimata M’baye, the co-founder and president of the Mauritanian Association for Human Rights, became Mauritania’s first woman lawyer. In the 30 years since, she has achieved many more firsts – the first conviction for child exploitation, the first indictment for slavery, and the first prison sentence applied under the 2007 anti-slavery law, which she helped draft. Despite multiple imprisonments and threats to her life, she regularly takes on the most difficult legal cases – from representing clients accused of apostasy to her work on behalf of a “committee of widows” seeking justice for husbands murdered during a period of state-sanctioned communal violence. In a country struggling with unresolved ethnic tensions, Ms. M’baye promotes a message of tolerance: “I do not see myself as a black woman. I could be born white, yellow, Mongolian, or Kurdish, and I would have recognized myself in each of these. For me, the value of the human being is above everything.”