Samuel Kofi Woods (born May 1, 1964) is a

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

n human rights activist, journalist, politician and academic. In 1994, he founded the Forefront Organization, which documented human rights abuses during the

Second Liberian Civil War The Second Liberian Civil War was a civil war in the West African nation of Liberia that lasted from 1999 to 2003. The war was mainly caused by transition failures after the First Civil War, especially the peace-building process which would res ...

Biography

Woods was born in

Monrovia Monrovia () is the administrative capital city, capital and largest city of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast and as of the 2022 census had 1,761,032 residents, home to 33.5% of Liber ...

on May 1, 1964. He was one of twenty children. Woods has worked tirelessly in the field of human rights and has been vigilant in exposing

child labor Child labour is the exploitation of children through any form of work that interferes with their ability to attend regular school, or is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful. Such exploitation is prohibited by legislation w ...

practices and injustice throughout Liberia. Active even while a student, he was first arrested in 1981. During the Liberian civil war in 1989 Woods escaped to Ghana, but returned to Liberia in 1991 and founded a human rights organization, the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission. He operated a radio program aimed at exposing improper arrests, unlawful executions and informing citizens of their civil rights. In 1994 Woods created the Forefront Organization in order to shed light on human rights abuses during the Second Liberian Civil War. In 2006, Woods became the Minister of Labor under President

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Ellen Eugenia Johnson Sirleaf (born 29 October 1938) is a Liberian politician who served as the 24th president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa. Sirleaf was born in Monrovia to a Gol ...

, only to become Minister of Public Works in 2009 following a cabinet shake-up.

Awards

He won the

Reebok Human Rights Award The Reebok Human Rights Award honoured activists under the age of thirty who fought for human rights through non-violent means. Each year, the award was given to four or five individuals. Each received a grant of US $50,000 that was to be used to ...

in 1994 and received the Pope's human rights medal. Woods graduated with a Master of Arts in Development Studies, and a specialization International Law and Organization for Development at the

International Institute of Social Studies The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam is an independent international graduate school of policy-oriented social science. ISS was established in 1952 by Dutch universities and the Netherlands Mini ...

under

Erasmus University Rotterdam Erasmus University Rotterdam ( ; abbreviated as EUR) is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century Christian humanist and theologian. Erasmus M ...

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

References

External links

Interview with Woods at speaktruth.org

Woods profile at globalrights.org

Short biography at oxfordjournals.org

Oslo Freedom Forum
1964 births Living people Liberian activists Liberian journalists Liberian academics Columbia University faculty Government ministers of Liberia Politicians from Monrovia 21st-century Liberian politicians {{Africa-journalist-stub